I’ve censored the following, in protest of a bill that gives any corporation and the US government the power to censor the internet–a bill that could pass THIS WEEK. To see the uncensored text, and to stop internet censorship, visit: http://americancensorship.org/posts/3978/uncensor

Don’t let ???? ???? ???? our ????????. ???? ???? ????? ????????? as ????????? as the ?????? ???????? ???? on. The ???? is ????????? for ????? war.

See more antler here or buy some of your own.

I already know how it will unfold. I will be at the office I will be stoked and I will forget about it and remember two minutes after they go up and they will be sold out. Then I feel bad then good but then bad again. I have missed like the last few Kaws realeses this same way but I have landed a few that same way so I guess you win some, you lose some. There’s enough Kaws to go around I guess.

Well when I went to write this I realized I had an old draft of a post I meant to post after first flashing Bionix 1.2. Just a general bragging and celebrating of the goodness that was that is the Bionix. If you find yourself wondering “What the F is a ROM?” this post might not be for you but it’s nothing a little google wont fix. Anyways…

So after being on Bionix 1.2 (and loving it) for a while. I started noticing my media app kept dying so I decided since it had been a while and Team Whiskey had released a few ROMs that I would look into what these new ROMs had to offer. Out of the three current ROMs I chose NextGen V1 (there is now a NextGen V2)

Functional Stuffs

Well for starters I learned a lot with this ROM. This is the first time I ever replaced the phone.apk to get rid of the three second fade in “feature,” I added a fix to get rid of all the text messages in the call log and applied a framework fix by OldeCrow from XDA to fix a misalignment in the search button.

It is also quite snappy and has nice animations like my ubuntu netbook does. Screen transitions and all that good stuff. I thought this would cause more drain in the battery department but once I re-conditioned it I am averaging 24+ hours per charge with average use!! I have never had such good battery life. I still experience the occasional dying of the media.app but it rarely occurs so I don’t mind having to reboot the phone every now and then. With Bionix 1.2 I had to reboot daily to get any audio or video to work. I’ve also read that flashing certain kernels fixes the media.app force close problem but have yet to venture into kernel flashing.

On a not so great note my GPS is pretty shitty. Sometimes is just loses the signal and never comes back, other times it just re-routes me onto roads that are beside the road I am supposed to be on. It has overall just been pretty crappy.

Base Theme

Well it’s pretty blue. I don’t really mind and feel it’s a nice change. There are also some cool themes out there if you just can’t stand it. It comes with a themed market too which is also very blue. The only thing I don’t like is the actual launcher. It is black with a blue outline and the web icon has a lil pixel chew going on around it. I would’ve preferred it be slightly transparent like on Bionix 1.2 but beggars can’t be choosers. It also has a nice battery notification icon.

General Feelings

It is pretty friggin hot. I was skeptical because so many people post with bizarre horror stories but all in all I am much happier with Next Gen V1 than I was with Bionix 1.2. I find it is faster and gives me much better battery life. I wish the GPS worked a little better but I rarely use it so I think it’s a fair trade. I really have only tried Team Whiskey ROMs and both have been much better than the stock phone.

Links

Bionix NextGen V1 (gotta join the forums to view posts)
no fade ringer phone.apk
call log fix
framework fix for search

So I finally grew a pair and did the upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04. All went smoothly but it took like damn near four hours for everything to be done. The new unity interface is still kinda lame (I used netbook edition of 10.10 and hated the sidebar launcher) and I still don’t dig the sidebar launcher thing even though it doesn’t take up the screen space like it used to since the windows now cover it. I immediately went right back to the desktop edition which they now call “classic.” My boot time is now more like 30+ seconds, which isn’t too bad since my first install of 10.10 had some missing file error that caused it to be around 20 seconds instead of the famous 10 second boot so I never had a chance to be spoiled by a quick boot. I also had to re-configure a few things to get everything back to how it was.

First thing I had to do was install CompizConfig Settings Manager (ccsm) from the Ubuntu Software Center. I believe they got rid of whatever handled the effects in 10.10 and this is what you use now to manage all the effects. Although it doesn’t seem to apply the settings in some instances (?) The drop shadows on the windows look like crap and have a massive x-offset.

Second thing I had to do was the re-install the NotifyOSD Configuration since the previous version was just for 10.10. Simple instructions to do that are here. They also added the ability to turn the fade off on hover and to be able to click on the notification to close it. However it might be worth mentioning that “once you run NotifyOSD Config tool, these two last options (to prevent fading and to close the notification bubbles on click) will be removed from the ~/.nofiy-osd file so use NotifyOSD Config firstly and then tweak this or remember to add these options back to the file if you use the config tool later on.” In other words it might be easier to just edit the settings via the command line w/ gedit. If not you will find that every time you edit the file, kill the process and open the Notify config you will have the settings replaced by some odd default settings. I am not sure why this doesn’t come packaged with ubuntu in the first place but all in all it was a quick fix. Link: http://www.webupd8.org/2011/05/configurable-notifyosd-bubbles-for.html

I sort of wish I hadn’t upgraded as everything seemed a bit snappier and was less buggy in 10.10 but I’ll give natty a little time to grow on me.