On May 12 Netflix announced that they had launched a Netflix app on Android. This was great news for Android owners, however there is a downside. The app is currently only supported on a limited number of devices. Sad, but true. And of course, it's not supported on my Droid X for some strange reason. The Droid X is a great multimedia device (that's one of the reasons I picked it over the Droid Incredible), so why in the world it isn't supported out of the gate is beyond me. There's probably some technical reason, but it's still annoying. It's supported on the Incredible, of course.
About a week ago I discovered that some enterprising soul had figured out how to get Netflix to work on a variety of additional Android devices, including my beloved Droid X. Yay! If you follow the link, I was able to get it to work by following option #1. I downloaded the Netflix APK with the check disabled. Worked like a champ!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Rooting the Droid X
So last night I finally got around to rooting my Droid X phone. As expected, it was generally uneventful. I used SuperOneClick to root the phone, which proved to be pretty easy.
The hardest thing was installing the drivers for the phone on my Windows 7 64-bit system. I used the version of SuperOneClick that included drivers, and that worked out fine. I had to manually install several drivers for all of the related devices that showed up as not installed under Device Manager in Windows 7. Once that was done, I ran SuperOneClick, clicked the "Root" button, and I was done.
So now what? I've rooted my phone. Big deal. Well, that's pretty much the case. Unlike jail-breaking your iPhone, the things that you can do after rooting your Android phone are pretty much uninteresting, in my opinion. Jail-breaking your iPhone unlocks a lot of capabilities because Apple has locked so many things down in the first place. But because the Android platform is by nature a bit more flexible and open, there are very few things that can't be done with an Android phone already.
The biggest thing I did was uninstall a bunch of the "crapware" that comes already installed on a lot of Android phones. On my Verizon Droid X, I uninstalled the Skype Mobile app (regular Skype now supports both 3G and Wifi calls, so no need for a "special" version), Madden NFL 2011, NFS Shift (another game), City ID (an annoying pop-up app), the Blockbuster app (never used it), VZ Navigator (I use Google Maps), and I think a couple of others. None of these apps can be uninstalled without rooting your phone. They probably recovered very little space on the phone, but it made me feel better that they're gone.
I installed droid VNC server, which is kind of cool. It lets me control my phone from my PC. I also installed Titanium Backup (free version). I haven't dug very deep into this one yet, other than to use it to uninstall all the crapware I mentioned above. It comes HIGHLY recommended from a lot of sites.
I also installed ShootMe, which lets me take screen captures of what's on the phone, something you can't do without rooting your phone. That is kind of handy.
That's really it so far. I'm sure there is more out there, but I haven't had time to uncover everything yet. Stay tuned. I'll post more if I uncover anything truly earth-shattering.
I will say that I am interested in trying the CyanogenMod custom ROM. Sadly, it is not yet available and (won't be for some time) for the Droid X, according to @cvps, one of the guys working on Cyanogen. Hopefully it will happen eventually, as it looks very interesting. I want me some Gingerbread!
The hardest thing was installing the drivers for the phone on my Windows 7 64-bit system. I used the version of SuperOneClick that included drivers, and that worked out fine. I had to manually install several drivers for all of the related devices that showed up as not installed under Device Manager in Windows 7. Once that was done, I ran SuperOneClick, clicked the "Root" button, and I was done.
So now what? I've rooted my phone. Big deal. Well, that's pretty much the case. Unlike jail-breaking your iPhone, the things that you can do after rooting your Android phone are pretty much uninteresting, in my opinion. Jail-breaking your iPhone unlocks a lot of capabilities because Apple has locked so many things down in the first place. But because the Android platform is by nature a bit more flexible and open, there are very few things that can't be done with an Android phone already.
The biggest thing I did was uninstall a bunch of the "crapware" that comes already installed on a lot of Android phones. On my Verizon Droid X, I uninstalled the Skype Mobile app (regular Skype now supports both 3G and Wifi calls, so no need for a "special" version), Madden NFL 2011, NFS Shift (another game), City ID (an annoying pop-up app), the Blockbuster app (never used it), VZ Navigator (I use Google Maps), and I think a couple of others. None of these apps can be uninstalled without rooting your phone. They probably recovered very little space on the phone, but it made me feel better that they're gone.
I installed droid VNC server, which is kind of cool. It lets me control my phone from my PC. I also installed Titanium Backup (free version). I haven't dug very deep into this one yet, other than to use it to uninstall all the crapware I mentioned above. It comes HIGHLY recommended from a lot of sites.
I also installed ShootMe, which lets me take screen captures of what's on the phone, something you can't do without rooting your phone. That is kind of handy.That's really it so far. I'm sure there is more out there, but I haven't had time to uncover everything yet. Stay tuned. I'll post more if I uncover anything truly earth-shattering.
I will say that I am interested in trying the CyanogenMod custom ROM. Sadly, it is not yet available and (won't be for some time) for the Droid X, according to @cvps, one of the guys working on Cyanogen. Hopefully it will happen eventually, as it looks very interesting. I want me some Gingerbread!
Angry Birds on your computer...through the Chrome browser
If you feel like your life is not complete because you don't have a smartphone (Android or iPhone), and you don't own an iPod Touch or iPad, and as a result have been unable to enjoy this Angry Birds game that everyone is always talking about, well, now is your chance.
Google announced last week that Angry Birds is available on your PC via their Chrome browser. I'm an advocate of having multiple browsers on your computer anyway, since sometimes one of them stops working. It's always good to have a backup plan. And if you're using LastPass, don't worry...Chrome supports that as well.
So, if you don't already have Chrome, go ahead and install it. Then follow the link above to install Angry Birds from the Chrome Apps Store. I think you'll need a Google account as well.
Throw productivity aside, because you'll be playing Angry Birds for a while!
Google announced last week that Angry Birds is available on your PC via their Chrome browser. I'm an advocate of having multiple browsers on your computer anyway, since sometimes one of them stops working. It's always good to have a backup plan. And if you're using LastPass, don't worry...Chrome supports that as well.
So, if you don't already have Chrome, go ahead and install it. Then follow the link above to install Angry Birds from the Chrome Apps Store. I think you'll need a Google account as well.
Throw productivity aside, because you'll be playing Angry Birds for a while!
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