We’ve made the inclusion of the unmodified Holo theme family a compatibility requirement for devices running Android 4.0 and forward. If the device has Android Market it will have the Holo themes as they were originally designed.

Google states that it has no desire to restrict companies like HTC from making custom skins. It looks like they have included framework to make it easier to incorporate, however Google is seeking a common theme across devices and it looks like this might be Google’s way of forcing ICS on devices in the future. 

If companies like HTC want to use Google Market, then they need to either come up with a version of Sense that uses the Halo theme, or lose the Google Market. While this might be as simple as changing a couple of colors, it might also mean a complete rewrite of the code that makes up custom skins like Sense.

Personally, I hope that manufacturers are able to come up with light skins that use the halo theme. There is no need for such a heavy skin on Android phones, and Sense is a great example of a skin becoming too bog for its own good. ASOP ROMs almost always run ~100 MB in size while Sense ROMS are often ~450MB in size. While the end user might enjoy a windshield washer wiping their screen clean when checking the weather, it shouldn’t get to the point where skins get so large that they prevent even newer devices from getting updates.

Source

***I was able to find a paid version of this program for free directly from the app writer’s website: get it here.

It was delayed over and over again by Verizon, and it’s hard to get the unlocked version in the States, but the wait was worth it because this is one killer phone.  However there is a problem with it.

It is just too hard to hear the phone going off. Be it the phone’s ringtones, or text message notifications, they are often too quiet to hear. You could run your ringtones through a program like Audacity to make the mp3s themselves louder, or install a simple program called Volume +.

Volume + is a program that allows you to customize how loud the phone plays your ringtones and notifications. Think of it as a super powerful volume button that allows the phone to dial up the volume past what the phone is set to. (Crank it to 11!)

There are many apps out there that claim to do what Volume + does, but this is by far the best, and it does everything that need out of the box for free.

I love my new GNex and I will do my best to post my findings and musing as I get to know this wonderful phone.

HOLY FUCK a GB!

What happened? Are you guys seeing numbers like this? I am not complaining at all, but I can’t even touch that, I’ve been trained to avoid using the internet for so long…

You see, I am really, really, sad.

Today, I went out with my wonderful wife to a place that I used to live. While I was getting dressed up, I noticed that I was having problems getting my shoes on. Like bad problems. My stomach is so big that I can’t even really get my own shoes on.

It’s time to get my priorities straightened out.

We had a lot of time to talk tonight, over dinner. I discussed how I felt like I was not living with any structure in my life, and that I was not getting much accomplished. My grad school work is way behind, I am the biggest that I have ever been in my entire life. I feel like I am not getting anywhere in my life.

So I have a plan, and I am going to stick with it and see how things work out.

First off is bed at 10 pm. I am really guilty of using Caleb as an excuse to stay up until dawn, but really it’s my own fault. I am sure that if we go to bed at the same time every night, that he will fall into line just fine.

Second is my grad school work, and with that, figuring out what I need to do with myself. So what I have determined is that I am going to focus my culinary training on candies and wait for it…chocolate. With a direction under my belt, I am focus my free time on something.

Third is getting my ass outside and running again.

Hopefully, this will get my ass out of the funk that I’ve been since I lost my job, which is almost a year ago.

Oddly enough, I had to get my phone back to stock Android to get the process started…which I am sure doesn’t make much sense. If you look at my posts, everything centers around gaming, and that’s not really paying the bills. So I need to go ahead and stop playing my days away, and to do that I need to moderate my time on both WoW and Xbox Live. Since both of these services are enabled by my wireless tether on my phone, I decided to get rid of it. So, as painful as this is, I am back to a stock HTC Thunderbolt. Don’t worry, I will live.

So the idea is to hold out until the Samsung Galaxy Nexus releases in the US. At that time, I will look at what’s going on and maybe allow myself some time on the 360 some more. Of course with Thanksgiving and the kids being out, I am sure that we are going to be playing some Halo: Anniversary.

There is a widget on my page that lists my weight loss.  The idea is to post at least every other day with my weight and progress.

Day 0-Nov 19: 270 pouunds, 70 pounds to go.

So a quick recap of what’s going on with my gaming. In college I played the hell out of some Xbox Live. We are talking GRAW, and some Halo 2. Also, my roommate got me hooked on World of Warcraft (WoW) and so to say that I spent a fair amount of time online is an understatement. In an earlier post I went over the heartache I felt when I realized that getting married meant giving up broadband, and pretty much the internet as a whole. Way out in the middle of the woods, I have all the fresh air that I can stand, all the sunshine and hunting and fishing…blah blah blah. As a gamer, I am not ashamed to say that I am allergic to the sun. I had to find a way to get online again.

Tried dial-up, tried a Verizon 3G Aircard for my laptop, nothing really worked. Then I finally broke down and ordered Hughesnet. That sexy chick was saying all the right things, and despite my looking online and seeing nothing but bad reviews of their service, I ordered it anyway.

Big mistake.

The latency makes gaming almost impossible. While I was able to get online to Xbox Live, and download updates, and demos, I was not able to actually do any multiplayer gaming. Over time the invites to play games stopped and I was all alone on Live.

So one day I got disgusted and got on twitter.

“I pay too much money to not have 3G service at home. Verizon, I love you, but this sucks.”

I was shocked when Verizon called me. I was also shocked when after about an hour on the phone with them, when they called me, he promised to send someone to the tower closest to me and check it out. At this point, I didn’t have much hope for anything ever happening. Figuring that I was just blown off, I went about my business. That is until one day my Thunderbolt said 3G.

3G? Are you fricken kidding me?

Where I live, 3G ends about a mile up the road. I sometimes was able to lock into 3G in my front yard, but it would drop to 1X pretty quickly. Somehow, after about a week of solid 3G, I started to believe that this was real. That was over 3 months ago, and I still have 3G service at home. So what does this mean for  Xbox Live?

This should answer any questions.

This is my fav game right now.

Does Xbox Live work on Verizon 3G? Ohhhh heeeeellllll yeah it does!

Ok so here is my setup.

I have a 4G device, the HTC Thunderbolt. I pay an extra $30 a month for unlimited tether. What that means is I am using my phone as a portable hotspot. I then link my Xbox to the phone’s wifi hotspot in the network settings.

The good and the Bad

Latency on my line dosen’t ever seem to get above 300 ms. Keep in mind that most of your competition is running 50 ms of latency, so don’t be shocked if you lose some close battles. Your signal has to travel from a tower to the phone and then to your Xbox, while most people have a direct connection to a modem.

The quality of your Xbox Live experience depends on how strong and how close you are to the cell phone tower. I actually have a network booster setup in my front yard, with antennas pointed towards my tower. It adds another step that the data has to travel, but it is worth it to have a steady connection via 3G. Sometimes, for no reason, I lose my connection to my internet. It always comes right back, but I do get kicked offline about twice a day. It’s something to keep in mind.

This isn’t ideal at all. I use my Hughesnet connection for downloads larger than a couple of MB in size. Remember that Verizon won’t like 20 GBs of data downloaded off their network, but this is much better than nothing. As always, if you have questions, ask in the comments and I will answer them all.

First up, Microsoft keynote awash in Xbox green. There is a new dashboard for the Xbox 360 coming in the Fall Update. It is very clean, and white, featuring panels that look alike like the ones in Windows 7. One of the most sought-after features of the new dashboard that wasn’t even announced at the keynote itself is cloud integration of both your Xbox Live profile and game saves. Also mentioned in the post-keynote press release is a ‘beacon’ that lets your friends know that you want to play certain games.

The new dashboard is looking like it integrated Kinect into the UI seamlessly. The demo showed the power of voice. You still have to activate Kinect by using the word “xbox,” but now you can pretty much speak whatever you command the 360 to do. Also, the 360 has been added to the long list of devices that are “binged.” Now you can use your voice to search across the 360. Be it a game, a video, Netflix, or even live TV. Bing is there to allow you to avoid digging through menus, and display results right there in front of you. Now, I personally hate Bing, and was shocked to see that Youtube, which is owned by Google, would make it on a Microsoft machine, and was hoping for Google search, but also there is Microsoft shoving Bing down our throats again. It looks like a winner though, and my personal feelings aside, should be a huge improvement moving forward as the amount of media that the 360 can digest grows.

There was the usual gamut of games, most of which are supporing Kinect in some form. Forza 4 looks great, and supports Kinect by tracking your head, and panning the camera as you drive. Kinect Star Wars is looking better than we saw last year at E3, and looking like it is a retail release. Also shown is a gladiator Rome-looking hack and slash game in a first-person view, and Dance Central 2 is finally supporting side by side dancing. Mass Effect 3 actually uses voice commands and gestures to augment gameplay in a positive way.

Overall the Kinect games have shown a massive leap forward from the games that we have currently, but still seem like they are first-gen games. The most impressive Kinect demonstration was Kinect Fun Labs.

Fun Labs is a (free!!!) download available now that lets you use some of the new tools available to the dev community. Kinect finally supports finger tracking and you can actually scan yourself into the game as an avatar. You can also scan anything you want to, say a creepy pillow, and interact with the pillow in the game, which will put really spooky googly eyes on the object, and you can dance with it. This fun little game is free and a really fun way to show off the potential of something that hacker have been showing off for almost a year now.

Halo:CE is ten years old and getting a Cata-style remake. The game is called Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary, and looks good. It is going to feature multiplayer and the difference between Xbox’s must have launch title and the power of the mature Xbox 360 is quite stunning. While it didn’t look as good as the game below, it is going to strike the nostalgic nerve in gamers like me while we wait for.

Halo 4. Teased in all the right ways. The teaser was short and the view of the Master Chief was even shorter, but I noticed a couple of things right off: jet packs, customizable weapons! The game looks sick and I hope that 343 is using the in-game engine to power its cut scenes because John has never looked so good.

The other game that has had me drooling is Battlefield 3. I got to see a live demo of a tank battle and I cannot say just how stunning the graphics on this game are. It is the best looking game that I have ever seen—ever.

This is game of the year material, and the combat is intense and realistic. I can’t say enough about this game, I may break down and get a PC rig just to see this game in all of it’s glory.

There was also footage of Modern Warfare 3, but honestly, I just looked like more of the same. Which isn’t a really big deal considering the drama surrounding Infinity Ward, but nothing new or groundbreaking.

Well, there is a huge problem here for those of us on Hughesnet. We all have the FAP to deal with, and there is a disclaimer that pops up saying that running labs is going to run through a lot of data. Well thanks for being vague, but really, we need a more concrete number than that.

Don’t you just love me? We are talking about 1 GB per HOUR that this program runs. There are rewards for doing this:

30 minutes of continuous usage gets your avatar a lab coat.

1 hour is a brain helmet.

6 hours is crazy scientist hair.

The FAP is 2 AM Eastern Time until 7 AM Eastern time.

5 hours.

Now in the interest of  this blog, I am going to run it for 6 hours and bust my FAP, and report on what happens in the morning. Turns out only the first 30 minutes needs to run in one shot, the rest can be resumed whenever!

I did get my lab coat!

I better see some crazy scientist hair.

**Update. I may have to do this another night. After 45 minutes, my xbox live disconnected and I keep getting an error message. I can see my friends online and “can play online” but other services will reappear when available.  I think that XBL just had a hiccup, and I am resuming Labs, but an hour later than I originally started.

So I am staying home with the baby, which isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. He is an awesome baby, and I dreamed about being able to watch him grow up while I was toiling away over a stove at work. Well, I got my wish.

Not sure where I am going in life, or what career I am going to get into. All I do know is deep down, I don’t like cooking and honestly, being a chef was going to be something that is not only hard on me, but hard on my family. What is hard is making it on one income and $115 a week on unemployment. What sucks is losing health insurance for my whole family. Although, looking at Japan, I think that I have things pretty good right now.

Life sucks sometimes, but I guess it is what we make of it that counts.

Maybe the forces that be have a bigger plan for me.

I just don’t know.

First of all, this isn’t a Verizon exclusive deal. Verizon never said that there isn’t going to be a Sprint or T-Mobile iPhone. Keep this in mind if you are on another carrier. The iPhone isn’t going to be announced on another carrier tomorrow, that would steal the thunder from Verizon, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see the iPhone on another carrier or two in six months or so.

The good:

Verizon boasts the larget 3G network in America. There are more hole-in-the-wall towns blessed with Verizon 3G than any other network. Verizon also has a large rollout of 4G LTE markets. (Basically if the city has an NFL team, look for LTE.) Also, most people say that Verizon handles large crowds of people better than AT&T does, for example at a football game or convention hall. This is an advantage of the CDMA network, routing voice and data separately. Verizon also has outstanding customer service.

The bad:

The iPhone doesn’t support 4G LTE, and you can’t browse the internet and talk at the same time. It is just a limitation of the network that Verizon uses. Never had a smartphone on AT&T, so I can’t say that I miss it. The flood of incoming messages after talking on the phone for an hour can be annoying though. Verizon also recently took away the 30 window to return/exchange a new phone (down to 15 days) and also took away the new phone at 13 months and extended it to 21 months. Did Apple ask Verizon to change these policies? I bet they did.

Apple and Android

Android is open-sourced. I sport a rooted, overclocked Droid X. I love this phone. Android phones can be rooted, which means the user can gain access to the whole phone. Don’t like how the icons on your screen look? Think the phone is too slow? Don’t like looking at the Blockbuster app that Verizon installed on your phone and can’t delete? Root your phone, download an app and do what you want to your phone. For instance, when my phone is on a charger or on a full battery I have a small overclock going on. In other words, I am pushing the processor in the phone to go faster than Verizon wants it to go. When the battery gets low, I have it set to actually slow down the processor to 60% of its regualar speed. This saves the battery. Kinda neat huh?

Well the iPhone is the opposite of Android. IOS is closed. Apple controls not only the software on the iPhone, but what phones use the IOS. Apple controls the software, and the hardware. Jobs controls the apps that go on the iPhone, and this can come off as tyrannical. So why do it?

Apple products work, and here is why. They only have to program for a couple of different platforms. Where Android is installed from anything from my blazingly-fast Droid X to a Sony Nook, (Yes that is an e-reader. Not to mention TV’s, cars and fridges. Yeah really.) there is the iPhone, which is made to Apple’s specs.

So it comes down to the open, but fragmented Android to the closed, but functional Apple iOS.

There is demand for the Verizon iPhone. I predict masses of people defecting from AT&T, and also Verizon customers getting the iPhone.

This is exactly what both Apple and Vierzon want. Don’t do it, here is why:

1. You are getting locked into a 2 year contract.

• Verizon doesn’t allow upgrades at the 13 month mark anymore once you sign a new contract. Your old contract is in effect, and you can upgrade at 13 months if your current contract states that, but once you sign a new contract, you are subject to the new rules.

2. This is a new phone on a new network.

• Apple and Big Red say that the only thing that changed from the Big Blue iPhone 4 is the new antenna. I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it at all. Even if a problem is identified in the first week, it takes weeks to get a fix from Apple and more time to test the fix by Verizon. You could be looking at 3 months to fix a problem which will piss you off when you realize that:

3. There will be a newer, much improved iPhone released in only six months.

• This is why Verizon and Apple timed things out like they did. The iPhone gets an update every 12 months. We are 6 months into that cycle. Apple sells more iPhones, Verizon locks a ton of customers into 2 year contracts, LOCKED INTO PHONES THAT ARE OBSOLETE .

Keep your money. Smile as your friends get the Verizon iPhone. Play with it, and then get the new one in 6 months. Who will be envious then?

Do they play well together?

*Updated, Fall 2010 Dashboard. *Update Xbox Live on 3G here! 

I never thought that in today’s day of age that there were people out there that didn’t have broadband. I was pretty much always plugged in playing on Xbox Live or World of Warcraft at all hours of the day and night. Then I got married and moved out into the woods. So the long and short of it, is that I went from some pretty kick-butt broadband to dial-up. Then I bought a USB modem from Verizon, but being too far from the tower meant frequent drops in the data stream. Then I got Hughesnet, and that is what I am going to focus on here.

Does Hughesnet work on Xbox Live? Yes and no. If you have done any kind of research on this subject, then you know that they say pretty specifically that “twitch gaming” isn’t supported by Hughesnet, and I can verify that. I can’t play any kind of multiplayer on satellite internet.  No Modern Warfare 2, no Halo:Reach. Bummer ‘eh? Before you get all mad, keep in mind that there are things that are possible on Xbox Live that you might not realize.

Xbox Live signed in with Hughesnet!

Things that you can’t do on Xbox Live via Satellite Internet:

• Mulitplayer
• Chat *I have used voice chat on the new dashboard!

Things that you can do on Xbox Live via Satellite Internet:

• Title updates (The update that you get when you first play a game when connected to Live.)
• Sign In to your gamer profile
• Rate games
• Read your messages and compose voice and text messages to your friends
• Twitter and Facebook work fine
• Download demos, add-ons and themes*
• Stream movies on Netflix*
  

  Netflix

Now keep in mind that I have the plan that allows 450 MB of data. *Using Netflix and downloading demos eats up your allowance pretty freaking fast, so I recommend that you do these things at 2-7 AM EST, during the ‘free’ part of the night.  My wife and I watched a couple of episodes of Lost on Netflix and I had to use our free monthly token to reset our usage. So, it is something that isn’t really practical but it’s good to know that you can use it.

Now, there are some technical things that I have discovered about the service. Navigating to http://www.systemcontrolcenter.com/ has become some sort of obsession of mine. This allows you to see all sorts of things about your modem, and your service.

Now when I first fired up the internet, the first thing that I did was see if Xbox Live worked on my brand-new 360 Slim. It picked up the wireless just fine and signed in to Live. This made me so happy. I was schlepping my 360 to work and getting updates and demos there.  I did notice however that there were things that didn’t work. Just getting around wasn’t working. I couldn’t browse anything on Live. I was signed into Live, but opening the demos page returned an error. At this point, I was navigating to Xbox.com and putting items in my download queue.  Then I found this: http://www.systemcontrolcenter.com/stlui/fs/advanced/turbo_page_config_frame.html

Turbo Page is a pre-fetching service that is on my default. It seems to make pages load faster by having the servers take some of the load off the modem. What this does is totally fruck up Live. Once I turned this option off, Live came alive. However, for some strange reason, title updates didn’t work.  It is very easy to navigate to the link above and enable the turbo page option and download the updates that you need.

The 360 Connected to Live via satellite internet

Overall, it is kinda nice being able to go online. After years of being offline it is nice to have some functionality on Live. While you can’t play multi-player MW2, you can keep up to date with things like ‘This Week in Xbox’ and game videos. Seeing your friend’s gamerscore and played games is nice too. It’s not perfect, but it is better than nothing.

Hope this helps. Leave me a comment if you have a specific question that isn’t covered!