T. Longren » Open Source

Unlocked Bootloader for Motorola Defy

Tyler — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:59:47 +0000

No, the Motorola Defy bootloader hasn't been unlocked (yet). Rumor has it that a few individuals do have Defy's with unlocked bootloaders though. Why is having an unlocked bootloader important you ask? Have a look at this article from AddictiveTips for a good summary of what a bootloader is, and why they are often locked. The OP in a thread on XDA that I came across earlier today claimed to have found a method to unlock the Motorola Defy bootloader. The OP said he would be posting a video with proof of the bootloader unlock, which I don't think ever came. I checked the thread again later and was disappointed to see that it had been removed from XDA. So, it was likely someone taking Defy owners for a ride, getting our hopes up without actually having a method to unlock. This doesn't mean it won't happen. Epsylon3 is believed to be working on this, and if anyone can do this, it's him. He recently managed to brick his original Defy, but received enough donations so that he could buy a new one. So, it sounds like he will continue working on the bootloader unlock. There's two threads on XDA that you should follow if you're interested in keeping up with the status of unlocking the Motorola Defy bootloader. 1. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1443678 2. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1169557 Or, you could subscribe here (on the right) to keep up to date. If anything new develops on the Defy bootloader unlock front, I'll be sure to post.

Cyanogenmod 9 Is Really, Really Here

Tyler — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:56:30 +0000

Well lookie here! Epsylon3 has released the first Cyanogenmod 9 nightly build for the Motorola Defy. There's still a pretty hefty list of things that are broken, but it's way smaller than it was last week. Download links for the Cyanognemod 9 (CM9) nightlies can be found at http://tanguy.forumdoandroid.com/. That site contains links to various downloads. If you want to run Cyanogenmod 9, you'll want this link http://defy-cm.net/ics-test0/. [ad] As expected, some things are still broken:

Fix orientation sensor
Fix Google maps
Fix 3D
Fix camera (will be hard)

Don't think I'm quite ready to try this out yet. I'll give it a shot on my Defy once the orientation sensor is working properly. Might wait for the camera to be 100% functional too, I use my phone camera often for taking pictures and video of my daughter. Here are some screenshots: [gallery link="file"] You can find a video after the break.

HTML5Press 2.2

Tyler — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 01:45:22 +0000

HTML5Press 2.2 is available for download. You can grab it from the HTML5Press page. A detailed list of changes can be found at Github. Probably the most notable change in 2.2 is the addition of a "follow me" button to the Twitter widget, which you can see in the featured image attached to this post. It's enabled by default, but can be turned off from the widget options. Hashtags in the Twitter widget are now clickable, just like links and @names. I committed this change to the original Simple Twitter Widget, created by Matthias Siegel. I also fixed an issue where small fonts were being applied to any label element, even when label wasn't being used in a form. This made the title for the new "subscribe widget" from JetPack 1.2 be really small. So those of you using that widget should see an improvement. Other notable changes:

Field for Custom CSS on HTML5Press options page
More accurate fuzzy timestamps
More accurate fuzzy timestamps in comments
Use get_template_directory_uri() instead of get_stylesheet_directory_url()
Allow use of "All Categories" for the featured post slider.

You can see all the changes at Github. You can download version 2.2 from the HTML5Press page. Report any issues in the comments on the HTML5Press page or open up an issue at Github.

First Cyanogenmod 9 Test Builds

Tyler — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 20:50:35 +0000

A thread at the XDA Developers forum has been discussing progress on Cyanogenmod 9 (CM9) for the Motorola Defy. The first post includes a video of a Motorola Bravo running Cyanogenmod 9 with Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0). The Motorola Bravo is running Cyanogenmod 9 for the Defy, but it seems to work. You can see the video here at the end of this post. In the most recent post in the thread, josuearisty provides a link to http://defy-cm.net/ics-test0/. There you'll find two builds of Cyanogenmod 9 for the Motorola Defy. UPDATE 11/29/2011: Epsylon3 has updated his original thread, his first post now links to http://defy-cm.net/ics-test0/ as well. There's also a new nightly, 111129. I'm not even going to install it, it probably has a lot of the issues the ROM from Epsylon3 has. It's still encouraging to see nightly CM9 builds for the Defy popping up though. [ad] I was a little worried about Cyanongemod 9 even being released for the Defy, but the Defy is one of the most popular devices for the Cyanogenmod team, according to the Cyanogenmod stats site anyway. According to the Cyanogenmod stats site, there's nearly 50,000 Defy's running Cyanogenmod. The Motorola Defy is the umts_jordan device. If you've got a Motorola Defy and are really, really anxious to run Ice Cream Sandwich, you now have two options. The AOSP ROM from Epsylon3, or a Cyanogenmod 9 nightly from http://defy-cm.net/ics-test0/. I'll be holding off on Ice Cream Sandwich for at least another month, probably more. I need to have a very stable phone, and can't afford to run bleeding edge software on it. If you've tried Ice Cream Sandwich in AOSP or Cyanongemod form, let me know, I'd love to hear what you think of it. You can see the video of Cyanogenmod 9 on the Defy after the break!

Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) on Motorola Defy

Tyler — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 15:32:00 +0000

Epsylon3 has managed to boot Ice Cream Sandwich on the Motorola Defy. As you can imagine, lots of things still don't work, like 3G and the orientation sensor. Epsylon3 also released the first test ROM for Motorola Defy phones. The download link has been shutdown due to "copyright abuse". The test ROM was made available at http://defy-cm7.tk//ics-test0/. I doubt it will come back online, so keep an eye on the original thread at XDA for a new download link. Things that work in the test ROM:

Startup, bootmenu and recovery
Touchscreen and keypad (multitouch too)
Usb
New Network (netfilter) kernel modules (quota2, and fake qtaguid)
wifi

Things that need work:

Fix egl configuration : Cause the force close on many apps including default launcher, settings and gapps setup wizard
Fix colors (almost fixed)
Fix sound
Fix phone / 3G
Fix orientation sensor
Fix egl hw acceleration for omap3 (can be hard) : gralloc.omap3.so
Fix camera (will be hard)

UPDATE 11/29/2011: See this post for links to some Cyanogenmod 9 test builds for the Defy.

Cyanogenmod 9 Incoming: Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) Source Code is Available

Tyler — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:41:51 +0000

The source code for Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) is now available. You can find instructions for downloading the source at the Android Open Source Project site. Steve Kondik, the original creator of Cyanogenmod, tweeted the following last night: [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/cyanogen/status/136313427248431104"] Sounds like we'll start seeing the first Cyanogenmod 9 builds in the next couple months! Exciting news for everyone who has been abandoned by their handset manufacturer. I highly doubt my Motorola Defy will ever see an official upgrade, even to Gingerbread. Ice Cream Sandwich should run quite well on the Defy's hardware. This is exciting news for everyone in the Android community really, not just those who've been abandoned. The more choices you have the better, and Cyanogenmod is available for a multitude of devices. Can't wait until the nightly builds start popping up, it's gonna be a fun next couple of months! If I had to guess, I'd say we'll see an alpha or the first nightly builds of Cyanogenmod 9 within a month, or a little more. Hopefully by Christmas (and this is just me wishing) we'll have something! Steve also mentioned on Twitter that work will progress on Cyanogenmod 7.2 until it's ready to be released, while simultaneously working on Cyanogenmod 9. [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/cyanogen/status/136324771578261504"] If you'd like to get the Ice Cream Sandwich look now and not wait until Cyanogenmod 9 is out, have a look at my post Make Cyanogenmod 7.1 Look Like Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (Kinda).

HTML5Press 2.1

Tyler — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 22:17:43 +0000

HTML5Press 2.1 is available for download from the HTML5Press page. You can see a detailed list of all the changes between 2.0 and 2.1 on Github. There were three major additions to HTML5Press 2.1, including fuzzy timestamps, a built-in Twitter widget, and support for WordPress custom backgrounds. Gregory C left a comment a few days ago that made me decide to add support for WordPress custom backgrounds. It was a simple enough thing to add, not sure why I didn't add support for custom backgrounds earlier. [ad] The featured photo for this post is just a screenshot of the Twitter widget options. That widget may look familiar to you. It's nothing but a slightly modified version of Simple Twitter Widget by Matthias Siegal. I made some modifications to his plugin to include the HTML5 time element and to also make use of timeago for fuzzy timestamps. Fuzzy timestamps are global in HTML5Press. Dates/times on posts, pages, comments, and the twitter widget will all be shown as fuzzy timestamps instead of the actual date/time. Mousing over the fuzzy timestamp will reveal the true date/time. Some other, more minor changes and fixes:

Fix the Allerta font, it was pulling the wrong font from Google
Include the lightbox effect on gallery images and include them as a set
Remove HTML5Press options from Appearance menu and give it it's own menu.

You can download HTML5Press 2.1 from the HTML5Press page or from Github. If you notice anything broken or have any other problems, please start an issue at Github.

HTML5Press 2.0

Tyler — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:44:30 +0000

HTML5Press 2.0 is available for download. Changes from 1.9 to 2.0 include:

40+ Google Web Font choices
Built-in Lightbox effect using Slimbox2
Smaller post titles to accommodate long post titles
New styles for next/prev page links
Show page numbers at the top of post index/archive pages

You can find a full list of changes at GitHub. HTML5Press 2.0 can be downloaded from the official HTML5Press page. Please report any issues at the Github issue tracker or in the comments on the HTML5Press page.

Google Web Fonts in HTML5Press

Tyler — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 21:39:43 +0000

I've added 20 Google Web Fonts to HTML5Press. I pretty much just chose 20 fonts at random and went with them. The default font is still Droid Serif. You can choose one of these fonts via the theme options page. [ad] The first 20 fonts are:

Antic Volkhov Numans Voltaire Short Stack Questrial Comfortaa Rationale Varela Round Abel Gloria Hallelujah Sue Ellen Francisco Nothing You Could Do Amaranth Quattrocento Sans IM Fell Great Primer SC PT Sans Narrow Walter Turncoat Jura Coming Soon

You can see previews of those fonts here. [poll id="5"] If you vote "yes" and have a specific font in mind, please leave a comment here and let me know what font you'd like included. I'd be happy to include any fonts requested. Oh, and if you're curious, I'm using the "Gloria Hallelujah" font as of this posting. UPDATE 9/7/2011: I added 25 more fonts. All ~50 fonts will be available when HTML5Press 2.0 is released. If you'd like to try it early, you can download it from Github.

HTML5Press Post Titles Change

Tyler — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 03:57:52 +0000

Just wanted to note that I decreased the font size for post titles in HTML5Press. Size changed from 38px to 28px. You can see an illustration of the change in the image attached to this post. I've got some pretty long post titles around here, and I know some other people using HTML5Press do too.