The new client has support for multiple servers, as well as things missing in the single server client, timestamps, detection of network connectivity change (so it disconnects quicker without lag), etc. It’s still a work in progress, so feel free to give feedback and ideas.

Go to the site.

The chatwindow GUI hasn’t been fully implemented yet, I’ll put up a mockup that was done for me showing what I eventually want it to look like a bit later.

As usual, feedback is appreciated.

On a side note, I’m well into my exam period, wish me luck

**NOTE**:
This won’t save your preferences, just the install file. Also, if you end up screwing up your phone, don’t blame me, kthx.

Pretty simple method:

1) Grab the SDK and extract it, you need adb: Download it here
2) Install the USB driver and keep the phone connected.
3) On the phone, open the app you want to save the apk for.
4) Open up shell/command prompt, cd to the sdk/tools folder.
5) Find the app package name. Run ‘adb -d logcat’ (or ‘adb -d logcat > somefile.txt’ if you prefer to get the info from a file). You can also use ‘adb -d shell top > file.txt’ and then leave it for about 10 seconds before stopping it (ctrl+c))
6) Look for something like: “Displayed Activity: com.some.package/.some.file: 100ms” The important part is “com.some.package”. If you used ‘adb -d shell top > file.txt’, look for the package names of running apps and see which one is likely to be the one you want.
7) Run ‘adb -d pull /data/app/com.some.package.apk savedFile.apk’.

Congrats, savedFile.apk is your market app, saved for later installs.

To install it, use ‘adb -d install /path/to/apk’

Example with Bubble app on the market (Click for larger):

Bug reports, feedback and/or constructive criticism welcome (via email preferred).

I originally ordered the black phone but T-Mobile fucked up and sent me the white one and to get a black one is a long process, so I’ve decided to stick with it.

Anyway, first impressions:

The design is very nice despite what people say about the ‘chin’. The screen is very bright, even with low brightness settings, it looks a bit too bright. Soon after I got it, I noticed a very subtle but annoying creaking noise on the bottom right of the screen. Apparently, this is something to do with left over plastic during the manufacturing process and can be cut away. But when you buy a phone like, you expect not to come across issues like this. T-Mobile will be sending me out a replacement.

The keyboard is very difficult to see in the light when the backlight on the keyboard is on. Even sitting here with a room light, it’s difficult to see. But apart from that, it’s a very good keyboard, feel very solid. I hear the black keyboard doesn’t have the same issues.

The trackerball, I love this thing. It has a fuzzy feeling when you use it, it feels strange but good . My only gripe with it is I wish you could speed up the scrolling process with it, it keeps a constant speed when using it, unlike the finger swipe.

No problems with the other buttons, although they have the same seeing-in-the-light issues as the keyboard, but given they are 4 simple buttons, you won’t notice after a while.

After booting, I set it up with my gmail account, no issues there. The UI looks very clean, but some of the info is difficult to find, like battery info, which I found after using AnyCut (which is a great piece of software).

One problem I did find was with the Email software, you can’t use ‘Always use SSL/TLS’ unless you have a cert signed by a proper authority The workaround for that is to select ‘Using SSL/TLS if available’.

Hmm..let’s see, what else….

The speaker is really loud and clear. The Market app is very useful, I’ve used it more then I expected. I also finally got a chance to test my irc app on a real phone \o/ One disappointment was apps don’t automatically switch orientation, you have to open the keyboard for that. (It can be done, but needs to set in the AndroidManifest.xml file before shipping, but after that, the orientation only relies on the sensor and not the keyboard.)

T-Mobile also threw in a 8GB memory card (!) in addition to the 2GB that already came with the phone…nice! Sadly, no sign of the usb to 3.5mm headphone converter there have been rumors about.

That seems to be all for now, final recommendation, get it if you like it, but stick with the black model and don’t expect the glamor and wow factor of the iPhone.

My contract ( ) is £20 p/m with £7 p/m insurance and £100 for the phone. With that comes 100 mins + 100 texts (cross network) and unlimited (?) web usage in accordance with their Fair Usage Policy. (That means no 700Mb film downloads via the phone…yes I’m talking to you!) Quite expensive heh, but that was the cheapest plan they had (Yeah, I’m a cheapskate, so what? It’s this Credit Crunch, it’s killing me man )

I had been thinking, before Uni started again, about how it would be a good idea for me to write my own apps for Android, after all, the apps could be written in Java which was something I knew. The app I had in mind was an IRC client for the phone. (Yes, I am an IRC addict :/).

So, sitting in the Uni computer room, I decided I would make an IRC app for Android as a final year project.

I got started straight away, the SDK and the Android system was completely new to me, I’d never even bothered to look up anything about it. The initial weeks were very tough, I didn’t understand anything and was confused as hell even after reading the docs.

But now, I’m making good progress The app is coming along nicely; the toughest part is creating a parser, which is taking longer then expected. But my GUI and main interaction screen seem to working pretty well so far. I had to make a few design changes though, the idea to use tabs for channels just didn’t work out, mainly before working with dynamic content and tabs was cumbersome.

Anyway, I managed to work around that problem and load of others, so wish me luck to making a usable app \o/

P.S, leave a comment telling me what type of things you would expect to find in an IRC app for a phone…..

• Got a car
• Got 2 external HDs
• Got a PDA
• Got my own VPS
• Learnt PHP
• Wrote a PHP blogging engine, and scrapped it to do a rewrite, which I still haven’t started >.<
• Got another laptop
• Watched Smallville Seasons 1-7 and now following Season 8
• Watched 1 ep of Psych and loved it. Now watched Season 1, watching Season 2 and following Season 3

Heh.

Prolly more things to add, but can’t think of ‘em now.

I’m now in my final year of Uni and my final year project is making an IRC client app for Android, written in Java. Should be interesting…

So far the GUI is almost done (*thanks the person who dreamt up using XML for constructing GUIs*), and the text parser is making good progress. \o/ Now a matter of working out how to add the text to the main window and separating channels with tabs. Wish me luck

First, a few days ago, I’m driving along minding my own business, I come to a tight road, and some muppet in the opposite direction decides to floor it, hits my wing mirror, knocking it into my car and cracking the wing mirror glass (thankfully nothing happened to the plastic thing keeping the glass in place or the car door!)
I stopped immediately but by the time I turned around, he was long gone. I just hope his car was damaged as well. It’s no biggie though, the glass works fine, and a replacement is pretty cheap.

Today morning, I was out for a meal quite, far away, around 12am, parked my car in a side road. Have my meal, come out (around 1am) and find the back small window smashed, rear window rolled down and someone has had a proper go at finding something worth taking. Luckily, I left nothing too important in there so nothing was missing and double locking the doors mean you can’t open it without the key.
Called the police, who decided there was no point coming around since they hadn’t left any blood or anything at the scene. Got home, stuck a bin bag over the broken window and went to bed, but didn’t get much sleep. Woke up at 8am, called insurance, who sent someone over around 10:30am and replaced the window (in 10 mins!). Course, it cost me a bit, had to pay the £50 excess (booooo).
Got a call back from the cops who were interested in knowing if there was any chance the would-be-thief left prints behind. Chances are he probably did, the cops seemed happy with that and said they’d send someone around to check for prints (yay ). Hope the thief gets owned.

This morning, while getting the car ready for the repair man, I notice the rubber thing at the bottom of the car is half off Wasn’t much I could do expect stick it back the best I could, prolly needs to be taken to a garage and let them do it properly.

Sigh, never had this much trouble with my car before. No one’s ever touched my car, I remember leaving my window open for 3 days by mistake (!) and nothing was touched. Despite the occasional problems around here, this area seems pretty safe.