Rubin's Kid

I was born to not one , not two but 4 fathers .... And without any mother. I was given birth when my parents had very little money. My father always believed i would change the way people looked at the world. Like every great man he was also neglected.

One day seeing me in hands of my father crying, couple of people came and told they would like to sponsor me. They were keen to take me with them. To the delight they were even ready to take all my fathers with me. As i was a kid I dont remember much but my dads still say that the day was unbelievable.

I was living a normal life when my sponsors were working on my future. They teamed up with several other such people and formed a huge consortium. I couldn't believe how so many people started believing in such work.My life started to change i got better clothes, environment, food, home and what not. Their belief in me was even stronger than that of my parents. I could barely speak what was taught to me and could do basic maths then. 


Like every small kid i started learning with fun. I used to blabber whatever i remembered. School was fun because the way they taught singing, dancing, behaviors, morals. I got a nickname too Astro. I was the most pampered one.

I still remember when for the first time my parents took me for a party on Sep 2008 it was a dream come true for me. i wore a dress having all the alphabets and numbers written over it. Being a kid i couldn't understand most of the adult talk, i thought i need to grow faster :P . Hardly, i knew it was beyond my control.

Moving to school the teaching got serious. I was no more a kid, started wearing spectacles and had well developed senses. The world for me were huge buildings, lots of people running around the city.
mytouch started changes things slowly in April, 2009. Those were the days when i loved cupcake.  I started getting attention from many in school due to my abilities. My dad was the best teacher in the world. Like any other father he was happy.

One day when i was sitting in a restaurant having donut with friends everyone was amazed with 3G and the things around it. It would certainly make the world shrink. Video calling and high download speeds were in everyones reach. The whole world was connected in a huge web and I was just me.

In my college days, time was to win some attention by participating in various public events. I had an interesting story to get the attention . The English word éclair comes from a French word which meaning is "lightning" or "flash of lightning." Only God knows why a pastry was named after lightning. Perhaps most likely because its richness and oblong shape, easily held in one hand, compel a person to eat it in a flash. :)

As i added wifi, flash player and extended support to SDcard i was FROzen YOghurt. It was no looking back for me then. Change is the only thing that doesnt change so with Gingerbead came fame, so did wifi tethering, NFC


When i started services for free, many got jealous and started claiming that i stole stuff from them. But justice was always with me and my family. I dint look back, I shook hands with everyone because making friends was the only thing in my mind.

With ICE CREAM SANDWICH and JELLY BEAN the world is just android.  And thats me  :)
Thanks to my parents Andy, Rich, Nick, Chris and to my sponsors who are a household name now GOOGLE.

MIUI is MY UI

After getting an Android and exploring all the customisations from the app one has to try running a custom ROM on the handset. I tried a few ROMs wherein i dnt have to root my phone, coz that would void my warranty. When i was sure that my display, processor,battery and the performance were fine i took the risk and rooted my phone. By rooting the phone one has several accesses on phone. The most important being back up of apps with Titanium backup. Rather than this discussion i would give a walkthrough of my favorite ROM MIUI.

Its a chinese ROM. Yup! you heard it right. However, they have several other sources which translate their UI to several language including English,Protugese etc. If your friend has an iphone its the best ROM that would envy him.

It has a UI similar to Iphone. No appdrawer. Yes, all your apps are shown in homescreen like in iphone. You can organise them in folders like in iphone and add widgets in the homescreen unlike iphone ;)

If you are bored of stock ROM looks then this is what you would love.It has unlimited homescreens, which is rare in stock roms. The limit usually is 7 or 9 screens. You can customise your bootscreen to lockbar.

The features that make me addicted to it are as follows. Images would speak and not me
1) Notification bar and drop-down

2) Theme Manager

 

 

3) Lockscreens

For more details regarding miui features you can visit  http://en.miui.com/a-24.html

Things to remember when you are flashing any ROM

1. You have to root your phone which voids the warranty.
2. You run the risk of bricking aka screwing up your phone. However, if you follow the tutorial step by step, you should not face any problem.Make sure you follow instructions given a trusted site. Still there is always an outside chance something could happen.
3. You have to re-setup everything. Apps, settings, ringtones, everything and dont worry everything on your SD card is safe. If you have rooted your phone better take backup of apps from titanium backup(https://market.android.com/details?id=com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5rZXJhbWlkYXMuVGl0YW5pdW1CYWNrdXAiXQ..). Plus export your contacts to vcf file. Last but not the least if you want to save your messages use SMS backup and restore (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.riteshsahu.SMSBackupRestore&feature=search_result) and to backup call logs use call logs backup and restore (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.riteshsahu.CallLogBackupRestore&feature=search_result)

Worried, now the positives side

1.  Customisation at its peak, as the bolg says you can change more that what you do with stock ROM
2. No third-party hands messing up your operating system.
3. No apps forced upon you doing who knows what in the background.
4. Better battery life since those bloatware apps aren’t running.
5. You can install/enable tethering and become a mobile hotspot.
6. Depending on the ROM, new features, better usability and more control

Remember If done correctly, you can always go back to what you had, no harm done.So all the best. I m sure you will love it

Craze behind Android

"Why people are running behind android ?"

This was the first question that came into my mind when i was planning to buy a new handset. Whats so special about it ? Why the hell are tech columns filled with a little green robo who doesnt even look like honda's android Asimo ?

Those concepts which we saw in sci-fi movies are now becoming a part of our life. Iphone was one such revolution which proved that one doesnt need physical buttons on phone to use it. Later it became fantasy, dream for many and nirvana for those who had it.

 I was one of those who heard about it in late 2008. A myth in those days - touch screen phones dont have much life coz if something happens to the screen its useless. The myth grew larger - the screens of touchscreen mobiles have a low life. Like many i believed these myths. And thought it would look good only in James bond movies.

Then Suddenly the winds changed and in late 2010 several manufacturers launched full touch bar phones, nokia kicking off with 5800 xpessmusic , X-series. People started using touch phones and loved the size of the screen and those myths evaporated.

Out came Android from google, in association with HTC launched Era of Nexus phone. Later, being open source HTC, Samsung,Sony Ericcson,LG hugged Android wholeheartedly. With so many brands associating with Google, iphone would have felt the heat.

In mid 2011 i jumped into this wave of android and bought Samsung Galaxy S which was closest competitor to iphone in terms of hardware, display and of course OS. I learnt that many things which one cant do in iphone was possible with android.

Enough of history, the fun is when u get an android not when u see it in others hand. If u had any phone (other than an android) then could you change the way it looked ? Forget the themes ..... how about changing the way menu appeared or way u lock ur mobile. Say u are not able to add ur signatures to d messages, everytime u have to type it. One had to live with these restrictions.

These were not a big deal when a phone was just a phone. Now, it has evolved to such an extend that one day it may replace laptops. What android has done is it has given u flexibility and allowed you to do what you like, more like a PC where you install your software and use it at your ease.

The software here are called apps here and a common place where these apps are published is google's market. There are other markets too.. Open the market and 'appify' your mobile

Oh!, nd you have a concept of multiple screens wherein u can keep your must haves, may it be app or a widget. Widgets will become a habit once you add it to your homescreen. Widgets are not so old concept where one can keep a clock to a weather , news ticker to your facebook feed (on homescreen). This ensure you dont need to open the app everytime. saves time and looks fancy.

The fun starts when you stop worrying about the phone and install what you want. If it doesnt work make sure you know the name of the app, simply uninstall it. There are more than 3 million apps and you will certainly find one as per your requirement. :-D
To name a few of the customisation which one should do

1) Launcher - It is that part of OS which handles the way menu and homescreen is displayed. I never thought any phone would allow me to touch this. The best ones to are launcher pro*,panda home*, go launcher or adw launcher. From the market you can download and install it.Once done press home button on the handset. It will ask you which launcher you want to use.it list all the installed launchers plus one default launcher. You need to select the one you have installed and see the difference. Change the launcher preferences by clicking menu button from home. Various ways to switch screens - 3d cube, flip , roll etc.

2) Message - On my handset default message application doesn't allow me to use my signature or schedule an sms. So i got an app called chomp* sms by far the best app. it allows me to configure my signature, plus it has an awesome widget. One can read, reply, fwd the message from homescreen, no meed to go to msg application. Android has a concept message thread unlike traditional phones,so it sorts message as per sender and shows the conversation between you and contact. It is an awesome feature but now if i want to see all my sent messages,drafts,inbox then? Dont worry we have an app for that too pansi sms has both the forms of message - it has conversation mode or the conventional inbox, sent msg, drafts mode. Now thats customisation which probably i cant do in a blackberry or iphone.

3) Camera - Most of the android phones dont have a dedicated or physical camera button. I hate taking pics from screen camera button and want physical button for taking pics. You can use the volume buttons as camera button using CameraZoomFX*,procapture* app. To enhance photo you can use sketch me pro , Pixlr-o-matic* applications which change your pic to sketch, paint etc. Or use photoshop on phone to beautify images. You can use Photowrap* to change expression of faces. Try color Splash too.

4) Music player - The default music player is tweaked as per your phone by the manufacturer.You may have to live with basics. Try other players line winamp or poweramp* (one of best players) to get the beats and good equalizers. You want a fancy music player try 3* (cubed earlier). It has a cube with album art (rotate the cube to select album) or a morph flow mode.The UI of 3 is addictive and the name of the mode where you don't see album art gets a funny name 'boring'

5) Lockscreen - You can have the pattern set but the advanced lockscreens allow youto directly go to phone, camera, music player and not the homescreen.The same feature would be available with new version of android - IceCream Sandwitch. For this you can try GOTO lockscreen.

The list will go on and on . From a simple notepad to complex operations like increasing your speed of processor an app can do anything.

Try exploring the apps and you will start loving your phone. Start playing with your android!

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