Soullighter’s

I finally decided to go with CyanogenMod as the day-to-day ROM that I will use for my Desire. I have played around with OpenDesire and a few other custom roms but CyanogenMod with its extensive guides and relative stability is my pick.

The Wiki entry for updating the Desire details the simple steps to be followed to install the ROM on your rooted phone. Do pay attention and follow the backup section of guide as it can save you the hassle of recovering any sms messages, wireless and mobile APNs and call history. I settled on CyanogenMod 6.1.1 rather than the 7.0RC as the latter seems to be missing the proxy settings for wireless connections.

Towards the screenies and highlights of the features that CyanogenMod has provided over the stock ROM.

I have been hounding the Android forums for a bit before deciding I was confident and knowledgable enough to root my HTC Desire. As mentioned in the previous post, rooting an Android phone used to be quite tedious, but luckily there is one-click solutions to this now.

The method I used to root mine is through an application called Unrevoked. Using this method, I only had to download the application, plug in my phone to my computer through the USB connection and the application takes care of the process. As a general guide, using unrevoked involves the rooting process and installing a custom recovery image to allow backup and restore of the current vanilla settings so that if anything goes wrong, you can restore it to the original configuration. Unrevoked installs a recovery image called ClockworkMod Recovery.

Now to the process. I actually started to do the rooting using Windows 7. However, complications with the HMOD USB driver made me switch to Ubuntu to do it instead.

1. In Ubuntu, you would need to run unrevoked as the root user(Rooting as root -_-U).

2. Before that though, make sure to first turn on the USB Debugging mode in your phone by going to Settings>Development>USB Debugging.

3. Connect your phone to the computer using the USB cable. Make sure HTC Sync is not running.

4. unrevoked will then detect the phone being connected and proceed to root the phone and install ClockworkMod.

5. Your phone will reboot for a few times during the process. Unrevoked will inform you once the rooting has finished.

6. Verify ClockwordMod has been installed by selecting Recovery option in the HBOOT menu.On the Desire, the method to get to the HBOOT screen is to press the power button together with Volume down button. This may vary in other phone models.

7. Backup your current settings using ClockworkMod before you do anymore tinkering. NOTE: Make sure you have space on your SDCARD before doing this. Restart the phone through ClockWork after it finishes.

8. OPTIONAL STEP:IF YOUR PHONE GOT STUCK IN LOADING SCREEN AFTER BACKING UP THE SYSTEM, DO A RESTORE THROUGH CLOCKWORD MOD.

9. Verify that root settings has been unlocked by going to the App screen and seeing whether there is a new icon called Superuser Permissions.

10. Congratulations, your Android phone has now been rooted.

The next step(s) is to install custom apps or ROMs which can introduce tweaks and new features to your phone. Will write more on this in the next post.

I am not much of a phone enthusiast over the years. My first phone was Nokia 3310 back in the early college days which was phenomenal for its time. Its still kicking around back with my parents and still quite usable for its age. After the 3310, I have only changed phones every 2-3 years. Not that my last phone has died or something, but I finally saved some money and got interested to get a smartphone.

I realise that IPhones seems to be the rage nowadays with each new iteration of the model getting soldout reviews and sales. I can’t say I’m not impressed with the iPhones. They are capable and functioning devices but somehow the whole fanfare and hoohas about it just put me off. That’s when I first discovered the birth of Android OS from from Google. I have dabbled a bit with the early versions of Android but what strucked the chord was when Google Nexus One was announced. Issues with imports didnt manage to get me to try to buy one though. Not until its HTC equivalent, the Desire was released last year.

Right the HTC Desire! I finally got it! The Desire is essentially a HTC branded Nexus One with few changes and addons such as proprietary UI HTC Sense. I am actually quite late in the game, as the Desire’s new iteration has just been released, namely the Desire HD and Z. The current price and early adapter issue made me go for the original Desire though. I ordered it through Mobicity.com.au and got it delivered yesterday.

So, what do you do when you have an Android powered phone? Root it! Although plain vanilla Android and in my phone Android supplemented by the Sense interface is fine by itself, I like the fact you can do further tweaks and improvements to it. To do that though,you must actually unlock the superuser permissions in your phone first.

Basically, in a normal Android phone, you’re running as a basic or guest user that has limited administrative access and permissions. Similar to to the concept of the superuser in Unix/Linux environments, rooting allows system level changes and allows script executions normally blocked by the normal user permissions.

Rooting an Android phone is by far not a very hard process. It used to be that it has to be done manually, but as the Android modder community matures, one-click solution has been introduced to allow fast rooting to be done. It is s however still a bit of a daunting process. You have to be confident and calm as it has its “Eeek!” moments. The end-result? You have a perfectly capable phone Android phone that can be modded with custom features and tweaks.

A dedicated storage for a network requires careful planning on its implementation. One of the first things to be considered is the hardware to run the storage on. I have mentioned earlier on whether to acquire a proprietary NAS device or build a system from scratch as a storage system. After researching the options I have decided to build it myself.

The reason to this is because although proprietary NAS devices are simple, straight off the box options, the number of hard disk slots are limited to the model that is acquired.
Naturally this means devices with more slots costs more.

Often too, NAS devices have Linux as their base OS with all options pre-configured. This is good but the option to actually upgrade the system is limited to manufacturer’s update and more often than not allows less customisation as compared to a built from scratch system.

Building my own NAS box will allow me to mix and match the hardware needed such as CPU, RAM, motherboard, casing and power supply. In the unfortunate event one of those components fails, it is
also easier to replace. However, taking a cue from the proprietary NAS devices, I would want to keep it as a low-powered system as much as possible as the NAS box will run 24 hours a day.

So, what have I considered as my hardware options? For starters, I am thinking to built the system based on the Atom-Mini-ITX combo. I come across the following motherboard with Atom CPU by recommendation of a work colleague.

SuperMicro X7SPA-HF

Key Features
1. Intel® Atom™ D510
(Pineview-D) (DMI)
2. Intel® ICH9R Chipset
3. Up to 4GB single channel unbuffered,
non-ECC DDR2 667MHz SO-DIMM
4. 2x Intel 82574L Gigabit LAN
5. 6x SATA (3.0Gbps) Ports
RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 (Windows Only)
6. 1 (x4) PCI-E (in x16 slot)
7. 2 rear USB ports + 3 headers (5 ports)
+ 1 Type A connector
8. Integrated Matrox G200eW Video
9. Integrated IPMI 2.0

This motherboard seems perfect to build my system. A D510 CPU is more than adequate for the task with spares to add. 6 SATA ports allows me to add 6 hard disks(which I am planning to do!) and the built in video adapter saves me the hassle of buying a dedicated graphic card. The video adapter is a bit underpowered but as I would preferably run the system headless, this shouldn’t matter at all.

I am however stuck to choosing slower 667MHz DDR2 RAM’s though againvthis wouldn’t be a deal breaker. I would definitely get 2TB Western Digital Green hard disks as my hard disk choice. Running RAID 5 on 6 of them will give around 10 TB raw space which will dwindle to around 9 after formatting.

I am still deciding on the casing for the system. Currently deciding between this two:

Silverstone LC10-E

Lian-Li PCQ08

A week after downgrading(suprise!) my Westnet ADSL plan to a cheaper plan(around $10 cheaper), I found my media storage space slowly but surely filling up. Although I downgraded, the current plan has more download quota than the previous one; a massive 400GB monthly allowance.

Add to the fact that I seriously need to move around 3 odd Terabytes of medias in dvd-r discs before mold(NOOO!!!) takes over. I do keep my dvd-r’s with dessicants to keep the molds away however, eventually they will get corrupted by a combination of heat, wear and tear and also moisture. I am also planning to backup all my boxed PC games.

Currently, I have three 1TB and one 1.5TB hard disks that holds all of my medias. All of them are connected through my computer using external enclosures. Add around 250GB of dedicated internal hard disk space in my computer, the total hard disk space comes to around 4.7TB. An old Dell 620GX with 80GB hard disk space,serves as a makeshift network share running FreeNas for me to share stuff to my housemates.

Hard disk prices are coming down ever so quickly. A quick check on UMart’s and GoComp’s website shows 2TB Western Digital Green drives for roughly $136-138 mark. Ideally for my situation, buying four of these should suffice my storage needs for quite some time. The matter now is; building a computer as a dedicated NAS or go for commercial home network NAS from QNAP, Thecus or Synology.

Time to investigate the options and compare the benefits for a long term solution.