touch hd

Show Traffic for Singapore (v1.1) with kinetic scrolling

14 Comments

Kinetic scrolling is essentially a new improved way of scrolling a page, or a list, and is finger friendly and visually more pleasant. It was first found in iPhone user interface, but more and more applications in other mobile platform, such as Windows Mobile, Symbian, are following suite. In Windows Mobile, there is no SDK exists, to my knowledge, to enable developers to add this new scrolling feature to the application without substantial development work.

Last weekend, I managed to reverse engineer this feature and included it in my latest Show Traffic application. Check out the video, and you know what I’m talking about!

You can download the latest version from this link. Version 1.1 is now “skinable” (yay! my first skinable appy) and is compatible to both Q(W)VGA and (W)VGA Windows Mobile devices.

To skin the application, you have to modify the following image files

  1. BG_selector background image of the item
  2. BG_highlight background image of the selected item
  3. BG_spacer background image of the spacer between items
  4. BG_title background image of the title bar (at the top of the application)

Additionally, if your skin is a white/light-color based theme, then you need to change the foreground and background colour so that the text can be readable on your light-color based theme. This setting can be found in the registry path (HKCU\Software\Zenyee\ShowTraffic) You can download this zip file for a sample light-based skin with the appropiate registry.

Cover the Squeak up

1 Comment

Ever since I got Touch HD, I have a few griefs.

Modified Squeak-less Battery Cover

Modified "Squeak-less" Battery Cover

One of them is performance. After flashing my HD with Dutty’s V3.9 XT Turbo ROM, I felt as if I have gotten a new toy. But the moment I hold up the phone, the squeak on the battery cover put a big dent on the otherwise wonderful HD experience. As I depress on either side of the battery cover, the squeaks just remind me on the squeak and rattles I experienced in my old Volkswagen Bora.

I decided that I have  to do something about it (and give me one less excuse to change my phone!)

Upon inspecting the area where the squeak happens, I identified spots where the plastic on the battery cover is pressing against the phone housing.

All it took for me is a pair of scissor, masking tape, and a small screw driver (or any tool such as tweezers that can be used to position and press the tape on the squeaking area, or just your fingers if you do not have fat thumbs like I do). Stick the tape at the offending area, and you are done literally within a minute!

DIY Tools to mask the squeak

The left hand side of the battery cover

The left hand side of the battery cover

Right hand side of the battery cover; NB: The area above the tape needs to be masked as well

Right hand side of the battery cover; NB: The area above the tape needs to be masked as well

Finally, my HD feels like a gadget with a solid built quality. Maybe it was, but the squeay cover certainly suggests otherwise.

So it looks like I have to wait longer (for an excuse) to ditch my HD. Maybe a HTC Hero might be the one.

Custom ROM Upgrade for Dummies

23 Comments

DummiesIn my previous blog entry, I talked about why HTC Touch HD needs to have custom ROM flashed to maximise its full potential.

Unfortunately, the procedure to flash a custom ROM can be a nervy experience, even for an IT-trained individual. While  the actual flashing process will take no more than 10 minutes, one might get lost just by reading through the documentation of the procedure.

So here’s an attempt to do a video blog of the flashing process, to compliment  the detailed documentation created by the developers in xda-developers forum. In this video blog, I’ll be flashing custom ROM using USPL, instead of Hard-SPL method. Read here to know more about USPL versus Hard-SPL. For me, USPL is the least intrusive method, and I can flash stock ROM to my device anytime straight away without any additional procedure.

Continue reading →

A touch of Holy Device

4 Comments

I got to admit, the lure of new toy is always so tempting. My Sony Ericsson X1 served me well for the last 8 months, and in fact is the longest holding mobile device I ever have for the last few years. In the current economy climate, it just does not make sense for me to switch to a new toy. Plus, if my verdict on X1 ever suggests, if there’s nothing better than, eh-hm, what else could have turned my head?

touch-hd on the box

Touch HD is a device perfect for watching TV online

So  4 weeks ago when I sent in my X1 to the service center to have the keyboard and some parts repaired,  never would I had expected that would be my last Xperia experience.  It has to do with the infamous crack plastic housing that I requested to be replaced, but I shall not digress further. Fast forward to now,  I ended up selling my X1 back to the service center, and gotten a black stone, a code name for HTC Touch HD.

Continue reading →