Welcome the Nexus 7 to the family!

My mother received a Nexus 7 for Christmas. Obviously I can use this device as it was mine, so welcome it to the family!

As I put my hands on it, I immediately rooted it, installed the ClockworkMod Recovery and flashed the latest CyanogenMod 10.1.
I can tell you that it is a really nice device: powerful, extremely portable, user friendly even within the rooting process. A great piece of hardware indeed.
The only problem is that voice recognition isn't working yet, but they'll solve this little issue soon.

TF2: now awesomely working on linux

Yes TF2 now works on linux and seems to be really stable. It is fast and perfectly playable on a slow pc too.

XBMC 12 "Frodo" RC1 for Android: finally working

Yay! XBMC finally works on Android too! It is not perfectly smooth, but nicely usable and feels pretty nice. I think this could be a success (if you also consider the new android console OUYA coming soon) and I suggest you to try it, it's cool!
Not really useful on a smartphone, except for testing proposes, but still cool to show to your friends!

Hands on: CyanogenMod 10.1 for Samsung Galaxy S2

I promised a video and here it is! Hope you enjoy it!

CyanogenMod 10.1 (4.2.1) for GT-I9100: (un)official builds

I thought about this for a while and yesterday I first tried one of the unofficial CM10.1 builds for the GT-I9100. It is nice and I really appreciate the work codeworkx did.

I can tell you that it has not reached the CM10 level, yet: the UI is laggy and in my tests the camera and gallery didn't work. I am actually downloading today's build since there is an interestingly long changelog.
Moreover a rumor says that tomorrow we will have the first official builds (yes, they aren't official yet, even if codeworkx developed them... I think they want a certain stability to call a ROM official). In about an hour I will give you another update and I will make some serious tests with the new build to give you the best bug list I can give you (maybe you'll see a video, who knows?). Stay tuned!

XBMC 12 for Android beta 3 quick update

Nothing much has changed, the main menu works and there is sound now, but anything you choose doesn't work...
Moreover I noticed that if I force close the app and re-open it again it crashes right after launch.
It is possible that I experience these bugs because I'm using Jelly Bean, but I can't be sure.

H-Reader, a document reader for Android: official mockup

Here it is, my creation (er... just the mockup for now...): H-Reader.
This idea was born because I found no valid .pdf and .epub reader for Android.
Some time ago I told you that I was going to study Java, and that's why I need it.
The idea is a simple, Holo-light themed application with basic functions, nothing much but a useful and well made application.
I hope I will do this: it would be a really important achievement for me.
Hope you like!

XBMC 12 beta for Android

Yay, the firtst official apk is out! I had the possibility to make some tests and I wasn't able to do anything except opening the main menu. It is still a beta, I think they'll improve it, but for now it is far from being usable.
Stay tuned for more updates!

Java and the "chairness"

OK, I finally decided to start with Java. I want to create some applications for android and first of all I need to start with the basics.
That's what I've learnt: a class is the idea of something. If I create a chair class I don't refer to a specific chair, but to its chairness.
Sounds pretty dumb but perfectly logical.
Moreover this is really similar to Plato's philosophy, and that's just great!

More TF2 test results

Not as good as i thought... The game itself runs and it is quite usable, but gets slower on every map change. After a game I was playing at 1-1.6 fps, that is ridiculous.
I think it could be because of the new experimental drivers required to play.
By the way, surprisingly I did not experience that non-beta users issue.
That's it for now, I hope they update the game and the drivers soon.

TF2 test results

Quick post from phone.
Maybe it's just because I haven't turned off the PC since I installed Steam, but as now TF2 is extremely slow even using lxde and with the minimum graphic quality.
Or just because it is an early beta, I don't know. Anyway, when I go back home I'll do more tests.

TF2 on Ubuntu and non-beta users fix

Successfully installed Steam on Ubuntu 12.04 and now downloading Team Fortress 2.

Amusing testing INCOMING!

I will probably experience a known problem with accounts not authorized for beta testing, but hopefully I already have a solution!

Here it is for you:
1. Open a Steam file with gedit and superuser permissions with this command:

sudo gedit /usr/bin/steam

2. Edit the file putting this dispenser code right after #! /bin/bash:


export LANG=C
export LC_NUMERIC=POSIX



Now you should be good to go, have fun!

My Raspberry Pi Odissey

Last February I pre-ordered a Raspberry Pi. A lot of people nerds wanted to have their hands on this cheap and cool product for many reasons. I bought it to have a 35$ open source media center. The idea was cool and everything, and I waited really long for it.

When it arrived I had the SD card ready with Debian and I instantly turned it on.
When I finally saw the shell I thought I could already do... stuff.
But nothing useful seemed to work: HDMI audio wasn't working, the little PC started overheating and when I started LXDE it began terribly slow. I decided to try Open Elec, a light distribution with pre-installed XBMC, but it has the same problems of Debian.
Some months later I also tried an Android Ice Cream Sandwich ROM, thinking that since Android was developed for ARM it would have worked. Nope. System UI continuous crashes.
At last i gave up. I had a useless piece of cheap hardware capable of doing nothing.
For some time I forgot about it, since a couple of days ago I read about XBMC giving official support to Raspberry Pi.

The system is called Xbian. When I installed it I thought I would have had the same problems of Debian and Open Elec. But surprisingly almost everything was working!
And with everything I mean HDMI audio, nice performance, no excessive overheating and even AirPlay.
The only visible problem is with 1080p movies, but I don't really care: I am finally ready to set my Raspberry Pi in the living room as media center!

Photo sphere: second try!

Well, today I had the possibility to try Photo Sphere outdoors. It seems that the closer the subject is, the worse the photo is. Distant objects appear clear and uniform, but close ones are faded and distorted.
Still needs testing, maybe in a big open area instead of my balcony...

Photo Sphere preview: needs more testing!

Hey Internet, look at my first post!
Anyway, today I found a working version of Android 4.2 cool Photo Sphere feature flashable on Jelly Bean 4.1.x.

Sample of Photo Sphere on Nexus 4 I think...

After changing some settings in build.prop (do backups!) it decided to start. Today I had no chance to try it outdoors, but tomorrow I will give it a better try.
For now I can say that the result is pretty bad... I don't know why... As I said this needs more testing!