If you want to transform the ‘personality’ of your phone, then you have to change the ROM. This is known as ROMing. There are people that ROM their new phones as standard procedure not only to access functionality that doesn’t come standard, but also to feel that they have free reign over their phones. I stayed away from such radical customization owing to the risk of bricking a perfectly working phone. Besides, it wouldn’t have served any purpose beyond feeding my curiosity. However, over time my Ideos became sluggish, and boring. I’d go for days without tinkering with it to discover a new app, or new ways to customize it. And I was getting really pissed off at the sluggishness. So one day this here guy passed by my blog and mentioned Dronix. I hadn’t heard of it before and I liked the name right off the bat. I was hooked, and I went searching.

Dronix isn’t really that unique in the sense that most of its features can be found on other ROMs. But it does have that name… and it promises a significant speed boost. Among the features that it boasts, Dronix won me over on:

• Multitouch support
• Speed boost of up to 748MHz – My Ideos was previously running at 600MHz
• SSH support – allowing me to access the files on the phone over wifi, therefore avoiding the whole USB connectivity drama.
• Responsive user forum – very useful when you get stuck on something
• Extremely good reviews – especially from people who have tried out a number of ROMs

Before proceeding to describe how I went about ROMing, I’d like to mention that ROMing may go wrong in your particular case and leave you with a bricked phone. When you proceed with ROMing you’re taking full responsibility for anything that may go wrong.

Note that the PC portions of the process were done on Windows XP SP3. The experience is definitely going to be different if you’re working in a different OS. In addition, I hadn’t partitioned my microSD card so the swapping was straightforward.

Getting Ready to ROM

One thing that many how-to guides I came across failed to do was list what tools you require before beginning the process. ROMing is a delicate process and you don’t want to be discovering that there’s a critical tool you need to download, when you’ve wiped out your phone. So here are the items you should get before you begin:

• 4GB microSD card: The Ideos is typically sold with a 1GB microSD card. This is insufficient to support the ROMing process, so get a new card that’s at least 4GB.
• MyBackup Root: Very useful backup tool especially for data.
• Titanium Backup: A popular and comprehensive backup tool that’s great for restoring missing apps.
• UltraJack Recovery: This helps you perform two steps:
  1. Backup your current ROM
  2. Flash the new (Dronix) ROM
• Quick Boot: very handy in booting your phone into recovery mode
• Dronix 0.5: the ROM that you’re going to flash onto your Ideos.
• Stock ROM: this is the vanilla Android ROM that may come in handy should you run into problems and need to do a clean install of your Ideos. Hopefully it won’t come to this since you should be having your current ROM backed up and ready to restore your phone to its state prior to starting the ROMing process.
• Z4Root: It aids in rooting your Ideos prior to ROMing.
• PDAnet : It installs the USB driver that is required when setting up UltraJack Recovery.
• Sufficient free HDD space: During the ROMing, you’re going to do a lot of file copying between your Ideos and the PC. Make sure you have at least 2GB free on the PC hard drive for this job.

UPDATE (2011-12-11):

Some download links above stopped working recently so here are alternative sources for the files:

UltraJack Recovery

Stock ROM

UPDATE (2012-01-20):

Due to this week’s shutdown of MegaUpload, some more download links no longer work. The alternative file sources are:

Dronix 0.5  (link courtesy of Rooter in the comments – thanks!)

PDAnet

Backup n’ Stuff

Before you proceed in transforming your Ideos, it’s important to note down any important settings that may get lost in the process. In my case I noted the network APN for my 3G connection since I had read in the forums that a number of people had gotten stuck without 3G since they couldn’t remember what the APN setting was. I’m not aware what other settings may get lost, but I doubt they are many since the backup apps can capture most relevant settings.

1. Rooting – almost all the steps to be carried out from this point on require that your phone be rooted. Rooting allows access to protected Android files. I rooted my phone a while back so I didn’t have to execute this step. I used SuperOneClick which worked fine, but was a bit complicated. A much simpler route to rooting is via Z4Root. I haven’t used it myself, but this video should help guide you through the process.

2. Installing the larger microSD card
   1. Connect your Ideos to your PC via USB cable and turn on USB storage.
   2. Copy all the contents of the microSD card onto a folder on your PC (eg. C:\Backup\Ideos\microSD1GB\).
   3. Turn off USB storage and disconnect the phone from the PC.
   4. Turn off the phone
   5. Remove the old microSD card and install the new larger card.
   6. Switch on the phone and connect it to the PC
   7. Turn on USB storage and copy all the microSD files from the PC (C:\Backup\Ideos\microSD1GB\) to the phone

3. Installing Custom Recovery
   1. Extract PDAnet to a folder on your PC eg. C:\Downloads\PDAnet_files
   2. Extract Ultrajack to a folder on your PC eg. C:\Downloads\UltraJack-recovery
   3. Enter bootloader mode:
      1. Turn off the phone
      2. Hold down the POWER button, the VOLUME DOWN button and the END CALL (RED) button simultaneously for 5 seconds. The phone switches on and gets stuck on the Ideos logo screen.

4. Connect phone to PC via USB cable. The Windows XP Hardware installer starts up.
5. Do not allow the installer to search for drivers. Point it to the location of the Android 1.0 driver – C:\Downloads\PDAnet_files\x86\usbwin to complete the installation.
6. Open a command prompt on the PC and type the following:
   1. cd C:\Downloads\UltraJack-recovery
   2. install-recovery-windows.bat

7. You’ll see the “sending ‘recovery’” and “writing ‘recovery’” messages and then the phone reboots.

4. Backing up
   1. Install MyBackup Root if you haven’t done so already.
   2. Refer to this video for a demonstration on how to go about backing up your Ideos. Backup all the applications as indicated AND also backup all data.
   3. Install Titanium Backup if you haven’t done so already. I used the paid version, so it’s likely that some of what I describe may be different for you if you’re using the free version.
   4. Refer to this video for instructions on how to backup using Titanium Backup.
   5. Download the non-market version of Titanium Backup and copy it to the root of your microSD card. This is going to come in handy later when restoring apps and data.
   6. Install Quick Boot if you haven’t done so already
   7. Reboot the phone into recovery mode using Quick Boot
      

      Ultrajack Recovery Screen on the Ideos

   8. Once the phone is in recovery mode, perform backup by selecting Backup/Restore > Nand Backup > Perform Backup > Confirm by pressing middle button in D-Pad.
   9. When backup is complete, reboot the phone by Volume Down button > Volume Down button > Reboot system now
   10. Once the phone has started, connect it to the PC in USB storage mode and copy over the contents of the microSD to a folder on the PC (eg. C:\Backup\Ideos\microSD4GB\)

5. Make sure your Ideos is fully charged before proceeding to the next steps.

Finally, we can ROM

All the steps till this point are unlikely to lose you any data. With ROMing, however, everything is wiped out and replaced with the phone’s new personality. This shouldn’t worry you too much though since you’ve already taken a backup of the phone’s ROM, so it’s possible to recover your phone back to its original (before ROMing) state. The microSD is untouched by ROMing so all the files on it are going to be immediately available to Dronix.

1. Connect your Ideos to the PC and copy the Dronix zip file (dronix_0.5_samnium3.zip in my case) and the Stock ROM zip file (U8150 V100R001C191B822(Australia channel sales).zip) onto the root of the microSD card.
2. Reboot the phone into recovery mode using Quick Boot
3. Flash Dronix by selecting Flash zip from sdcard > Choose zip from sdcard > dronix_0.5_samnium3.zip > Confirm
4. Once the flashing is complete, reboot the phone by pressing Volume Down Button > reboot system now
5. When my phone restarted, it reported that the microSD was damaged so I had to format it. This obviously wiped out all the files, but I wasn’t worried since I’d already taken a backup of the contents. After the formatting I rebooted the phone and then copied the files over from the PC back onto the microSD. The one thing I noticed during this process was that I no longer needed to have Quick Boot since Dronix has both Reboot and Recovery options on the Power menu.
6. Restore basic settings:
   1. Set the Time zone and time format
   2. If your phone hasn’t picked up 3G yet, then set the APN to the correct value. In my case, the APN was automatically picked up from the network so I had internet access right from the start.
   3. Once you have internet access, you can set up the phone’s Gmail account. Without this, it’s very difficult to restore the rest of the data (especially contacts).
   4. The next thing I restored was wifi. I did this manually since I hadn’t reinstalled the backup apps yet. I wanted to have wifi running just in case I needed to download any apps.
7. Restore backup apps:
   1. Dronix comes with File Expert already installed. Use this to browse to the root of the microSD and tap on TitaniumBackup_latest.apk to install. Dronix also comes already rooted, so you can go ahead and install any apps that require rooted phones without having to go through the rooting process.
   2. Use Titanium Backup to restore MyBackup Root by selecting Backup/Restore > Batch > Restore missing apps with data > Deselect all > MyBackup Root 2.7.7 > Run the batch operation
8. Restore data – I had to learn the hard way that Titanium Backup wasn’t the best choice for data restore. When I restored my contacts, not only did the wrong information get associated with the wrong contacts, but the call log did not find matches in the contacts and then finally the whole phone app crashed. So I had to reboot the phone in restore mode and redo the flashing. After re-flashing, I restored the data a bit at a time using MyBackup Root:
   1. Restoring contacts – I do not synch my contacts with Gmail since it messes up by mixing phone and mail contacts. I prefer to leave mail contacts in mail and phone contacts on the phone. For this reason, my restore process wasn’t as easy as what I’d read on the subject. This is how I did it:
      1. Logged onto Gmail on the web and exported the contacts
      2. Enabled Google account sync on the phone
      3. Restored Contacts data from MyBackup Root by selecting Restore > Data > Local > (the most recent data backup) > Contacts > Ok
      4. It warns you that there are many records to be deleted. Allow it to proceed.
      5. Once the restore process was complete, I allowed the online contacts deletion to proceed to the end,  after which I disabled account sync on the phone.
      6. Restored the online Gmail contacts from the earlier exported file

2. Restoring other data using MyBackup Root:
   1. Call log: Restore > Data > Local > (the most recent data backup) > Call Log > Ok
   2. SMS/MMS: Restore > Data > Local > (the most recent data backup) > SMS + MMS > Ok
   3. Calendar: Restore > Data > Local > (the most recent data backup) > Calendar > Ok
   4. Dictionary: Restore > Data > Local > (the most recent data backup) > Dictionary > Ok

9. Turn on the overclocking – I also got my fingers burnt on this one. The first time round I had restored all apps and configured a number of them (eg. Go Launcher Ex) before tweaking the CPU frequency. The thing about these frequency settings is you never know what values your phone can handle until you try them out. So I kept adjusting upwards and all went well until I hit 748MHz. The phone simply rebooted, and I realized what the limit was. Unfortunately since SetCPU was configured to turn up the frequency on booting, the phone kept rebooting, and I had to restart it in restore mode and repeat the whole flashing process This is where the manual (without Quick Boot) way of booting into restore came in handy. I removed the phone battery and then put it back in, after which I held down the POWER button, the VOLUME UP button and the START CALL (GREEN) button simultaneously for 5 seconds. Once I completed re-flashing, I decided to tweak the frequency as early in the restore process as possible to avoid suffering too much of a set back if things went wrong:
   1. Restored SetCPU using Titanium Backup by selecting Backup/Restore > Batch > Restore missing apps with data > Deselect all > SetCPU > Run the batch operation. If you do not have SetCPU, there’s a link to it on my previous post about the Ideos.
   2. Disabled SetCPU’s Set on Boot so that if I accidentally hit the wrong frequency, the phone would only reboot once.
   3. Adjusted the frequency to 30MHz min and 729MHz max.
   4. The phone worked fine, so I re-enabled Set on Boot
10. Restore all other missing apps using Titanium Backup by selecting Backup/Restore > Batch > Restore missing apps with data > (uncheck any apps that may no longer be required eg. Quick Boot) > Run the batch operation. This process is very smooth with the paid version of Titanium Backup. The free version requires you to keep responding to prompts for each app restored. For this reason you may choose to restore from MyBackup Root instead. I haven’t tried restoring apps from MyBackup Root, but I bet it’s pretty easy. The only app that completely failed to run on Dronix is Twitter for Android. It didn’t even show up on the list of apps.
11. Restore System settings using MyBackup Root by selecting Restore > Data > Local > (the most recent data backup) > System Settings > Ok
12. The ROMing is complete so you may now delete the Dronix and Stock ROM zip files from the microSD card using File Expert.

The Dronix Experience

So far I’m loving my phone’s new personality. It feels like I went out and bought a new Ideos. I’m constantly using it for all sorts of stuff. I also feel a deeper understanding of the workings of the phone and therefore less concerned about bricking it. One surprising thing I learnt is the fact that two Ideos (what’s the plural?) phones could look identical on the outside and have significant differences internally. For instance, there are some that do not have hardware support for multitouch.

The Dronix phone app allows typing a contact’s name to call. The contacts and calendar apps give me the choice of saving entries as either phone entries or Gmail entries. I like choice . There’s even a web server, though I haven’t found use for this yet. I’m totally enjoying pinch-to-zoom which feels a lot more natural than using the zoom button. The camera seems to perform better too, but I can’t quite speak much on this since I take most of my pictures with an actual camera. I used the ROMing as an opportunity to try out a new Twitter client, and I must say Plume  has been great.

There are kinks too. For starters, I’m not very fond of the way the phone sometimes hangs and has to reboot. Or the way some apps (especially Plume) just crash. This is something that I never experienced on vanilla Android, though I imagine that more polished versions of Dronix are going to iron out such bugs.

Is the phone faster? Well I haven’t felt like shaking it senseless yet, so it must be responding better. BUT. I would still prefer a much snappier response. Perhaps I’ve hit the limit of the Ideos when it comes to number of apps installed versus the desired responsiveness.

Dronix 0.5

So how did we get here? Well, according to Kurzweil, the rate of technological advancement is growing exponentially and so by around 2040, computers are going to surpass the human brain in intelligence and sheer processing power! Imagine that. The computer is now the boss of you. So why should we bother with Vision 2030 when obviously the machines are going to be taking over shortly after that? Now the story goes that when the super computers check in, we’re going to figure it’s easier for us to merge with them rather than compete, so we’re going to have all sorts of implants that allow seamless interoperation between our biological selves and the new machine parts. Oh and these computers are tiiiiiny, on the nano-scale. Those of you that have watched Stargate SG-1 (or Atlantis) are familiar with these miniscule robots called nanites that run around inside your brain doing all manner of operations like boosting your memory capacity, increasing intelligence, maintaining your health and sometimes even rewriting your DNA.

Having all this wonderful technology inside us isn’t much fun if we’re just going to get hit by a car and the story ends. Enter backups. We shall want this. The idea that you can upload your mind (memories, personality etc) to the cloud for safe keeping. Imagine being able to backup your brain after that awesome first date and can re-live it in exceptional detail some time later. Think of all the uses of a backed-up mind. If you get car-jacked and want nothing of that horrifying experience you can simply pick a backup copy to restore and the memory is gone. There are downsides too. Picture the scene where the US soldiers are celebrating the successful killing of Osama only to have a live broadcast from the man himself coming through on CNN. They didn’t get the backups!

Apparently the advancements in technology shall be so incredibly out of this universe, that it shall be possible to craft a suitable replacement body to host the downloaded mind. A kind of artificial reincarnation – only this time you are certain not to come back as a dog. Even if you wanted to, your human memories would just confuse it. And why would a dog need to remember how to eat with a spoon anyway. This immortality thing doesn’t just end there, however. If we can actually store the mind in a machine, isn’t it possible for that mind to actually live in the machine? Instead of having some passive storage state awaiting future download, the mind can simply take up residence in the cloud and dispense with the physical world. Live in a virtual world no longer encumbered by the laws of physics.

So what happens when more and more people find it preferable to exist inside machines rather than boring old terra firma? Well, the population of what we used to call humans shall continue dropping. The diehards who shall not hear of a machine existence shall inevitably, die. Eventually there’ll be this one incredibly old woman – perhaps one hundred and fifty years – whose life has been extended by technology, but has absolutely refused to have any backups of herself. The last bona fide human. Why do I think it’ll be a woman? Well for one, Kurzweil wants to download into a woman’s body. No idea why, but I bet he’s figured they’re more resilient, and since immortality is so dear to him, then a female body should be his best bet. Secondly, it’s kind of fitting for the last human to be a woman.

She’s in some health care facility. The whole world knows the end is near. All news channels are tuned in to her bedside. Those who can afford have been downloaded into physical bodies and can watch the whole thing in person. By now humans number in the tens of billions. There’s a lot more real-estate on earth if your dwellings just occupy a folder on a hard disk somewhere on the internet. In any case, why limit yourself to earth if you can just travel the vastness of space as software in a spaceship? Wherever they are living, all ‘humans’ take a moment to witness the passing of the last of their ancestors. The last human to die.

Here’s the thing. I’ve been having an Ideos for some time now and, well, I’m still the one laughing. There’s so much you can do with this little smartphone, you literally forget the size. All courtesy of the Android 2.2 operating system running inside it. And the best part is I haven’t had to invest in a larger SD card like I had originally planned. The 1GB card is sufficient for plenty of apps and data. What apps you ask? I love customizing any device I own, so I got down to shaping the Ideos to my preferences from the moment I unboxed it. Here’s some of what I’ve done with it:

Rooting

There are plenty of apps you can install on your Ideos in its off-the-shelf configuration. If you’re not too adventurous and just want to know some of the stuff you can install without having moments of increased adrenalin, then skip this section and check out the list of apps. If, on the other hand you want to get your hands dirty and truly bring your Android Ideos under your control, then rooting is a must.

Warning (yes I have to be dramatic about this): Rooting your Ideos is most likely going to void your warranty, so once you go down this road there’s no running back to the shop for assistance should anything go wrong. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, you may brick your phone in the process so don’t attempt it if you don’t understand.

Now to the fun stuff. The Huawei Ideos, as with any other Android smartphone, operates in unprivileged mode. What this means is that there are parts of the phone that are inaccessible to regular apps. This is normally ok, but becomes a liability when you want to install apps that need access to protected areas of the Ideos. Accessing protected sections of the phone requires superuser (or root) privileges. Getting the Ideos to support operating in root mode is what is known as rooting.

Gaining root access isn’t always a straightforward task and you may have to experiment a bit, but at the very least you need to install ADB (Android Debug Bridge) and SuperOneClick on your computer. Once you have SuperOneClick installed, clicking on the Root button carries out the necessary commands to grant you root access on the Ideos. Of course you have to have the phone in debug mode and connected to the computer via USB.

Removing Unwanted Apps (requires root access)

The Ideos comes preinstalled with various apps, some of which may not be of much use to you. In my case, I removed the following:

• Google Maps – I chose to remove it since I was installing Brut Google Maps instead.
• Documents To Go – Didn’t have and still don’t have the need to view documents on the phone.
• Facebook – I’m not on Facebook (yep, I said that )
• Youtube – Didn’t seem to work well so I removed it

Removing these apps requires more than just root access. You need to remount the system partition in read/write mode and then use ADB to run the uninstall commands.

Adding Useful Apps I (not requiring root access)

Opera Mini – popular web browser for mobile devices and always among the first apps I install on any new phone.

TweetCaster – this Twitter client is overloaded with features. It’s a lot more fun to use than the default Twitter Client for Android. One of my favorite features is the ability to send links to Instapaper to read later. It also has a really neat conversation thread view.

JustPictures! – it manages all the photos on your Ideos and also allows you to browse online photos from all the major album hosting providers (Flickr, Picasa, Facebook etc)

SoundHound – fascinating app that comes to your aid whenever you want to ‘name that tune’. It has come to my aid when naming tracks from movies and also music playing in mats (public transport minibuses).

Simple Last.fm Scrobbler – I use this to scrobble whatever I’m listening to onto Last.fm. Nice way to keep track of what music I listen to the most.

Barcode Scanner – this app can read both bar codes and QR codes. I use the QR reading feature heavily to ‘copy & paste’ links and text from the laptop to the phone. Generate the QR code on your computer with Kaywa and then pick it up via the phone’s camera. The app automatically copies whatever it decodes from the QR code onto the clipboard.

RealCalc – simply a scientific calculator. I like the way it has a classic scientific calculator look.

Time Recording – this is a highly recommended app for those who love to track their time. You simply ‘check in’ to tasks as you work on them. You can attach notes to days and also view daily, weekly or monthly reports

Catch Notes – I keep a lot of notes and this app not only helps me capture ideas as they come to me, but also synchs them to an online account so I can access them later from the laptop.

Brut Google Maps (version 4.6.0) – this is basically Google Maps with turn-by-turn navigation enabled worldwide. Very handy app, this. I used it to locate the nearest ATM recently and the directions were spot on. Thanks very much @Mwirigi for initiating the ATM mapping exercise

Google Sky Map – great app for the star-gazers! Aim the phone at whatever portion of sky you need to know more about and you’ll see the stars, constellations and planets mapped out – names included.

Ulysse Gizmos – this is a set of tools to aid travelling. There’s a compass, GPS status, altimeter, speedometer and more.

ES File Explorer – it allows you to navigate and manage the files on your Ideos. It can also browse the Local Area Network so I use it to copy files from my laptop to the phone over Wi-Fi.

Android VNC – I use this VNC client to get desktop access of Windows 2000 and Ubuntu. That way I can carry out some tasks without having to walk over to the computer.

Remote RDP Lite – great for having desktop access to Windows servers on the internet whenever I’m not at my workstation.

Battery Indicator – the default Android battery indicator doesn’t share a whole lot of info. With this app, you can tell exactly how much charge you have left, how long since the last time you charged and also the current battery voltage and temperature (no, I have no idea why I want to know the temperature).

APN OnOff – in order to conserve battery power, I normally switch off 3G reception whenever I’m using Wi-Fi. There’s also a pre-installed widget on the Ideos that I use to turn off Wi-Fi whenever I’m out of range.

Update:

APN OnOff stopped working at some point, so I went back to the Android Market for a replacement. Quick Settings turned out to be an excellent alternative with controls for turning off Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth in addition to 3G. It even has a torch feature and also allows you to modify various volume settings.

Brightness Level– I found the screen brightness on the Ideos to be higher than I wanted it, so I use this app to turn brightness all the way down for indoor use. The inbuilt Android brightness widget does not offer a sufficiently wide brightness range especially on the lower side.

MultiTask Manager – Even though Android is a multitasking operating system, I did not find an easy way to switch between apps. This app allows you to select a running app to switch to without having to close the one you’re viewing.

Drop – a very simple game that grows on you. It makes use of the phone’s vibration capability to make the impact of the bouncing ball feel extremely realistic.

Bubble Shoot – another simple game, basically about shooting colored balls. Great for passing time when you don’t want to engage your brain much

Adding Useful Apps II (requiring root access)

SuperUser – this app acts as a broker for other apps that need root access. It notifies you whenever an app requests superuser rights and you have the option to grant those rights in perpetuity.

Terminal Emulator – for those of you that like talking to computers via the command line, this app grants you that pleasure by presenting a linux commanline window.

ClockSync – keep your Ideos clock accurate. Computer clocks tend to drift and it’s a good idea to keep your phone ‘tethered’ to an online clock server. This app allows you to specify how often you want it to synchronize your phone’s clock with the time server of your choice.

Quick Boot – handy app for rebooting your Ideos. It can also reboot the phone into Recovery mode should suddenly find yourself needing to.

SetCPU – if you’re not happy with the default 528MHz on the Ideos, you can use this app to raise the speed to 600MHz.

That’s about it! I also have some music on the Ideos, but obviously not as many tracks as I’d wish since I’m still operating on the 1GB SD card. I’ve also come across a good number of folks complaining about the capabilities and performance of the Ideos. Well obviously we all have our opinions, but remember this phone is 8,000 freakin bob!

When I think back, I recall Mr. Kimaru who taught me swimming, Mrs. Kago who taught me music, Mr. Ogalo (r.i.p) who was my choir master and Dr. Sevilla who taught me C++. There is one thing in common among all these. None of what they taught me was in the school curriculum yet I value it all to this day.

Now the people who teach you stuff are not found only in learning institutions, you meet them all over, but there does need to be extended contact for you to learn most things. Well back to the question of immortality. These people have achieved immortality by having their very vivid impressions etched forever in my memory. I remember them like I just met them yesterday. I can hear their voices with varied accents, see their gestures and most importantly recall every bit of what they instructed.

The secret to immortality is teaching. Teach someone something you don’t have to teach and they don’t have to learn. If you don’t have to teach it and they don’t have to learn it, then the only reason you are in contact is a shared passion for the subject at hand. You’ll always remember someone who taught you something you were both passionate about.

Jupiter

A few weeks back I noticed an unusually large star that I couldn’t quite place. I still have difficulty translating the sky charts I find on the Internet to the actual sky above. Fortunately, though there was a newsworthy alignment of Venus, Mars and Saturn that got me digging for some decent sky charts so I could figure out where to gaze. I ended up at the Neave Planetarium where I typed in my coordinates and started orienting myself with the patterns. That’s when I noticed the placement of Jupiter and realized it was the bright star I’d been seeing. It was surprising since I’ve always thought of Jupiter as being too far away to have a significant presence in the night sky.

It’s actually true that the planet is normally too far away to be of much interest, but this year is different. Jupiter is on its closest approach to Earth, which happened last in 1951 and won’t be expected again until 2022 according to the National Geographic. The most exciting thing about the close proximity is that I was able to see four of its moons through a pair of binoculars! At first I wasn’t sure since I expected them to be too small, but the dots of light changed their position relative to Jupiter over two days. Two of them are much brighter than the rest so I guess they must be Europa and Ganymede.

I wonder when space tourism pioneers such as Virgin Galactic are going to be capable of getting passengers to destinations beyond Earth orbit.

(image source: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/)

Convert km per litre to miles per gallon

I implemented those bits, but soon got too distracted with work to go much further. However I still use that calculator exclusively – no more calc for me . That is until now. I recently came across the instacalc . A calculator that takes Thimleby’s ideas and pushes them to another level. It not only shows the answer as you type, but you can create variables and reference them in subsequent calculations (sort of like a spreadsheet but way cooler). You can save your calculations, share them with other people and even embed a calculation on your blog!

The calculator also has conversions of all sorts (temperature, length, mass) and supports the use of English words such as ‘million’ so your formulas look even prettier. Sadly, this means I have to retire my beloved calculator project, Desk Calc .

Up until recently, I had not figured out how to do this in Mercurial. I had to manually remove the .hg folder in order to move project files to production. That was until I came across this gem. Mercurial has an Archive command. It essentially does the same thing as the SVN Export command. In order to archive in TortoiseHg (Windows):

Export Prodcution Code

1. Right-click the source code project folder and select Hg Repository Explorer.
2. In the Repository Explorer, right-click on the default (tip) revision point and select Archive.
3. On the Archive dialog:

• Select the Archive revision you want to export
• Supply the destination path
• Pick Directory of files as the Archive type.
• Click Archive.

You now have a copy of your source files that does not contain source control infrastructure.

The Thesis framework is sufficient for a wide range of customization needs. However, as with all popular software, users’ needs eventually go beyond the default capabilities of the software. Thesis has in-built support for creating 2-column and 3-column sites. The layouts are configured via the Design Options menu and apply site-wide. You can override the layout of particular pages (eg home page) by intercepting the page generation process in custom_functions.php. The problem with this approach is that you have to know the designation (home), name or id of the page before-hand as you customize the site. If these details change after the site has been launched, then the customization code is going to break.

Page Template List

What if you want to alter the layout of an arbitrary number of pages that are going to be created in the future? All you know at customization time is what the layout shall be, but not which particular pages shall use it. This obviously calls for a solution that does not involve updating the customization code every time a page requires the custom layout. Even better, it calls for a facility that can be triggered while the page is being created by the user. A facility such as the WordPress  page Template selection drop-down. If you could create a custom template and have it selectable on the Template drop-down, then the user would simply pick it during page creation (or editing) and have it used for page rendering.

Thesis (version 1.6) does not support plugging in of custom template files, but it is flexible enough to pick them up if you know where to tweak. Here’s how you go about doing exactly that:

1)       Problem description

The hypothetical site we shall be working with is a travel blog. The site has various sections, but the one that is of interest here is one called Places. It has pages describing various travel destinations. These pages have advertising that shows in the left column. Every other type of page on the site does not have this left column and therefore no ads showing. How do we get the ads to show on the Places pages, but not on any other page?

2)       Create the page template file

The Thesis theme has a convention, where customization code is stored in the /wp-content/themes/thesis/custom/ folder. The standard customization files in this folder are custom_functions.php and custom.css for code and styling respectively. This is the folder where you shall put the new custom template file places_template_functions.php. The code for the template file is:

<?php
	remove_action('thesis_hook_custom_template', 'thesis_custom_template_sample');
	add_action('thesis_hook_custom_template', 'places_page_layout');
	function places_page_layout () {
		if (is_page()) {
			global $post;
			$places_template = get_post_meta($post->ID, '_places_template_swapped', true);
			if(!empty($places_template)){
				?>
					<div id="places_page_content">
						<div id="sidebars">
							<?php places_ad_column(); ?>
						</div>
						<?php thesis_content_column(); ?>
					</div>
					<?php thesis_sidebars(); ?>
				<?php
			}
		}
	}
	register_sidebar(array('name'=>'Places Ads', 'before_title'=>'<h3>', 'after_title'=>'</h3>'));
	function places_ad_column(){
	?>
		<ul class="sidebar_list">
			<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('Places Ads') ){ ?>
				<li class="widget">Place ads here</li>
			<?php } ?>
		</ul>
	<?php }
?>

The function places_page_layout () confirms that the current page is using the Places Template and then inserts the ad column into the page by calling places_ad_column().

3)       Create the template placeholder file

The placeholder file has two roles:

i)                     Register the new custom template in WordPress

ii)                   Call on Thesis framework to generate the Places page

The place holder file shall be located in the folder /wp-content/themes/thesis/ and called places_template.php. The code for the file is:

<?php
	/**
	 * Template Name: Places Template
	 *
	 * A custom template for use with Thesis theme for creating pages that add a left sidebar.
	 *  DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE. Instead, use the thesis_hook_custom_template() hook in custom/places_template_functions.php
	 *
	 * @package Thesis
	 */


	thesis_html_framework();

?>

The text Template Name: Places Template is key since it informs WordPress what the new template is called. The template is now listed in the WordPress page editor.

New Template Listed

4)       Load the new template into Thesis

The files that are in place so far enable WordPress to list the new template in the page Template drop-down. However, the template code is inaccessible since has not been loaded. The loading of the template code is accomplished by piggy-backing onto the Thesis custom_functions.php file. Add the following code to the end of the file:

if (file_exists(THESIS_CUSTOM . '/places_template_functions.php')){
	include(THESIS_CUSTOM . '/places_template_functions.php');
}

5)       Override Thesis custom template handling

Thesis is not aware of the new template and therefore cannot invoke it when a Places page is opened. To remedy this, we have to add code to the file places_template_functions.php that intercepts Thesis page generation and directs it execute the new template. Add the following code to the end of places_template_functions.php before the lalst  ?> :

/* Get Thesis to invoke this template*/
 if ( !is_admin() ) {
	add_action('thesis_hook_before_content_area', 'places_page_template_swap_before_content');
	add_action('thesis_hook_after_content_area', 'places_page_template_swap_after_content');
}

function places_page_template_swap_before_content(){
	if (is_page()) {
		global $post;
		global $swapped_post;
		$page_template = get_post_meta($post->ID, '_wp_page_template', true);
		if($page_template == 'places_template.php'){
			update_post_meta($post->ID, '_wp_page_template', 'custom_template.php');
			$swap_id = time();
			update_post_meta($post->ID, '_places_template_swapped', $swap_id);
			$swapped_post = $post;
		}
		else{
			$template_swapped = get_post_meta($post->ID, '_places_template_swapped', true);
			if(!empty($template_swapped)){
				$swapped_post = $post;
			}
		}
	}
}

function places_page_template_swap_after_content(){
	if (is_page()) {
		global $swapped_post;
		if(isset($swapped_post) && is_object($swapped_post)){
			$template_swapped = get_post_meta($swapped_post->ID, '_places_template_swapped', true);
			if(!empty($template_swapped)){
				$page_template = get_post_meta($swapped_post->ID, '_wp_page_template', true);
				if($page_template == 'custom_template.php'){
					update_post_meta($swapped_post->ID, '_wp_page_template', 'places_template.php');
				}
				delete_post_meta($swapped_post->ID, '_places_template_swapped');
			}
			unset($swapped_post);
		}
	}
}

You are now able to create a page, assign it the Places Template and view it to see the Places Ads column. Putting in the actual ad content can be done in the WordPress Widgets screen (Appearance > Widgets) by placing a suitable widget onto the Places Ads sidebar.

Palces Sidebar

6)       Positioning the Places Ads column

Since you have taken over the task of laying out the page columns, you’ll find that Thesis does not position the new column automatically. You need to add CSS to handle this. In this case, adding the following code to custom.css does the trick:

/* Ad column */
div#places_page_content {
	width: 656px;
	float: left;
}
div#places_page_content div#content {
	width: 545px;
	float: right;
}
div#places_page_content div#sidebars {
	width: 95px;
	float: left;
}
/* @end */

Places Template in action

Update:

Some people who have tried the code in this tutorial report that everything works ok, but the new column doesn’t show up. The most likely cause for this is that the hook that allows Thesis to see your template is not getting called. The hook to apply is dependent on the framework (Thesis Options > Design Options > Framework Options) that you’re using for the site:

1. If you’re using the ‘Full-width framework’ then the hook used in the tutorial is the correct one: thesis_hook_before_content_area

2. For ‘Page framework’, the correct hook is thesis_hook_before_content_box so edit the code in places_template_functions.php to replace:

- thesis_hook_before_content_area with thesis_hook_before_content_box

- thesis_hook_after_content_area with thesis_hook_after_content_box

Thesis 1.8 Note:

Thanks to Cannolo (in the comments) who allowed me access to his server, I was able to debug a peculiar problem that was afflicting some implementations of the Places custom template. It turns out that in Thesis 1.8, the call to the thesis_hook_before_content_box hook was repositioned. The consequence of this is that the template swap performed by the hook now happens too late to be of any effect. The next available hook in the chain is thesis_hook_before_html. Therefore, for those who chose to use the ‘Page framework’, apply the following modification to your code:

Edit the code in places_template_functions.php to replace:

- thesis_hook_before_content_area with thesis_hook_before_html

- thesis_hook_after_content_area with thesis_hook_after_html

Enter Mercurial. I like the whole idea behind distributed version control. The biggest selling point, however, is the fact that merging project branches doesn’t cause premature graying of your hair. I have avoided branching Subversion projects, but at the cost of having to run experiments on the main (only) source code branch. Now with all this talk of branching and merging, it’s kind of funny that the first hurdle you encounter has to do with getting started. It seems to have been assumed by many that you’ll already have a repository by the time you install Mercurial. But then how was that first repository created?

Easy.

Step 1: Initialize the repository

Create Repository

Install TortoiseHg for Windows Explorer integration. It’s best to get the repository going when you already have a folder with files in it. This is the project that you want to keep track of. I shall use my project folder C:\projects\GameOfLife for illustration.

Right-click the folder and select TortoiseHg > Create Repository Here

This opens the TortoiseHg Init dialog where you click Create.

A notification comes up confirming that the repository has been created so click OK, then click Close (on the Init dialog). The folder C:\projects\GameOfLife now has a green checkmark on it indicating that it is under source control. Opening it reveals two new objects: a file .hgignore and a folder .hg.

Init Repository

Step 2:  Setting up the Ignore Filter

It’s common for software project folders to contain files that do not need to be tracked. These files include intermediate compiler output, debugger symbol files etc. You can tell Mercurial to ignore these files so they do not get picked as files requiring some attention. To do this, right-click on the project folder and select TortoiseHg > Edit Ignore Filter

Ignore Filter

The Ignore Filter dialog opens up showing a list of all the files in the project folder (including sub-folders). Click on a file that you do not wish to track and it shows up in the Glob text field.

Click on the Add button to the right of the text field in order to have that file added to the Filters list.

If you want to ignore all the files in a particular subfolder, click on one of the subfolder’s files (eg. GameOfLife/obj/Debug/GameOfLife.pdb) and then replace the file name with *.* (eg. GameOfLife/obj/Debug/*.*)

Click Add to include the new filter in the Filters list

Continue the process of adding filters to your heart’s content then close the Ignore Filter dialog.

Filter List

Step 3: Adding the project files to the repository

Mercurial cannot start keeping track of files until you tell it to, so right-click on the project folder and select TortoiseHg > Add Files.

This brings up the hg add dialog with all the project files checked. Now since you had earlier indicated the files you want to ignore, the file list should just contain the files you want tracked.

Click on Add to get them queued for the commit.

Add Files to Hg

Step 4: Commit changes

Right-click on the project folder and select Hg Commit. Mercurial now has the file states initialized and all changes from this point on can be tracked.

What drives the perfectionist? I think its simple: Mistakes are despicable. The perfectionist abhors being tainted with failings, accidents, results that are not just so, and most of all the people who have a tendency to bring about these outcomes. If a child falls off a high seat, the perfectionist parent first scolds the clumsy behavior and then asks whether she’s been hurt. Finesse is important to the perfectionist and is not just required of them, but also all who are associated in any way that reflects back on the perfectionist. This would include parents, siblings, spouse, children, friends and even institutions.

You might hold the firm opinion that a perfectionist is all bad, but I believe you wouldn’t mind being served by a perfectionist. You wouldn’t mind having your meal cooked just right at a restaurant, or having road users keep to the traffic code. We love to enjoy the fruits of the perfectionists in our world as long as they do not start pointing out our foibles – for they can do this to perfection. The perfectionist has a valuable place in society, but it comes at a price.

The perfectionist is not only hard on those around him. The recipient of the most severe bashing is himself. He lives in constant fear of going wrong. He hesitates in making decisions because he cannot afford to err. Mistakes only mean he has to answer to his harshest critic – himself. He opts out of opportunities that are unfamiliar or whose outcomes are uncertain. He resists learning new things because he cannot be perfect on the first try. He builds a temple to perfectionism and truly believes that the world would collapse around him if he were to let go of these strict standards. It’s a mental prison that sometimes ends up being a physical one.

Well here’s how I believe the perfectionist can ease up on himself. By simply realizing that imperfection equals opportunity for growth and variety. If everything and everyone were perfect, then there wouldn’t be new innovations. The world would remain the same, and you most certainly wouldn’t like to wake up to the same world day after day for a lifetime. People’s minds wouldn’t develop beyond their current state. Imperfection spurs improvement, growth, insight. Imperfection provides challenges that give us purpose in life. So in actual fact, if you’re perfect, you’ll perish. Best of all, imperfection creates balance. The fact that you’re not so good at some things makes you all the more appreciative of things that you’re good at.

Accepting weaknesses in some areas of your life allows you to be more productive in your strong points. Accepting that you are going to make mistakes and learning to forgive yourself for them allows you to coexist with other people in greater harmony since you’ll in turn be able to forgive and accept them despite their shortcomings.