Google Announces The Death Of The Menu Button, Long Live The Action Bar

We can't say we didn't see this coming. Google just announced on the Android Developer blog that the Menu button is well and truly dead, in case you hadn't gotten the memo. The post has relevant information on how to update your apps to accommodate the new changes without breaking support for devices running software older than Honeycomb (which are the overwhelming majority at the moment).

Increase Your SD Card Read Speeds By 100-200% With A Simple Tweak [Hands-On, Benchmarks]

Poor SD Card performance can definitely have a negative effect on overall experience with your device, especially when considering apps that rely on speedy SD Card access, like the Gallery, or features, like Apps2SD.
XDA forum member brainmaster has been hard at work on tweaking some settings in Android to improve the situation in this very department. By adjusting a certain SD card cache value, he, along with many others on xda who tried this out, were able to significantly improve read speeds, usually at least doubling or tripling them, and in certain cases going even higher.
I thought it was a pretty interesting concept, so I decided to give it a run on my OG Moto Droid and outline my results here. It is worth noting that this process only focuses on the read speed of the SD Card and has no effect whatsoever on the write speed.

You must have root access with write permissions to /sys in order to modify any of the following values.

The basic idea behind this fix is to modify the amount of available read-ahead cache for reading SD Card data. By default, most ROMs will have anywhere from 4KB (for example, on the EVO 4G running Fresh) up to 128KB set aside for this task. In order to find the cache size on your device, fire up Root Explorer and navigate to:
/sys/devices/virtual/bdi/179:0/read_ahead_kb
If you plan on running this test yourself, you can simply modify the value in this file, save, and test away. However, know that upon reboot, it will return to default unless you make it permanent (more on that later).
I am currently running Project Elite 4.2 (Froyo base), which provides 128KB of cache by default. For the initial test, I did not make any modification to the cache value. I ran the test three times at the stock value and each of the modified values to ensure proper readings.
To run these tests, I am using an app called SD Tools which you can grab for free in the Android Market.

First Run: 128KB

As you can see, my card is quite slow, with the highest read speed at a mere 5.5 MB/s. The lowest was 5.4 MB/s, making the average speed 5.43 MB/s.

For the next run, I have modified the value to 1024KB and will increase by 1024KB for each subsequent test.

Second Run: 1024KB

The average speed for this run comes out to 7.8 MB/s which is an average speed increase of +2.37 MB/s. That's nothing to brag about, but I'll take any speed boost that I can get.

Third Run: 2048KB

According to the XDA thread, this is the setting in which most users achieved the best performance. My results were more sporadic than the previous tests, but the average speed for this run was 7.867 MB/s, giving a very slight +0.067 MB/s advantage over the 1024KB cache size.

Fourth Run: 3072KB

Again, my results lacked consistency. Even though the second test provided the fastest speed I've seen yet, the average speed of this run was only 7.83 MB/s, which is -0.0369 MB/s over the previous run.

Fifth Run (Final): 4096KB

This run produced the best results, but still not a whole lot different than the previous numbers. The average speed this go was 8.167 MB/s, which translates to +0.337 MB/s over the previous run and +0.3 MB/s over 2048KB cache, which was the fastest run prior to this one.

Conclusion

After applying the SD card cache fix, I saw a decent increase in read speed from about 5.4MB/s to 8.2MB/s. I urge everyone to give these tests a run for themselves - you may be very pleasantly surprised, especially if you original cache value was 4KB.
Once you find the value that works best for you, can you make it permanent by flashing the appropriate file found in the source thread through ClockworkMod Recovery (there are also instructions for setting the values with RA recovery or manually for those who do not want to flash or don't have CWM/RA).
If you decide to give this a go, let us know what value worked best for you along with your phone model in the comments.
Source: XDA

[Tutorial] How To Change The Bootscreen On Your Android Phone And Make Waiting For It To Turn On Suck Less

 

Let's face it: as Android users, we like options. One of the greatest things about this platform is the insane level of customization possible, especially if you don't mind getting your hands a little dirty. With some readily available tools (all of which are extremely free) and the proper knowledge, you can make your android phone do almost anything you could possibly want and make it look however you want. What we'll be talking about today is the bootscreen.

The bootscreen is that animation that plays during your phone's (admittedly long) power-on sequence. It's really easy to switch it out and, provided you've found one you like, I can show you how to change it. After some deliberation, I've decided the best place to start is the beginning.
There are some tools you'll need to have installed before we can start. First off, except in some special cases where the /system/ directory has write access already, you'll need root access. Chances are you can find out all about that by heading over to XDA-Developers and searching for your device in the forums. Once you've done that, you'll need one of two things:

• A file explorer on the phone that supports root functions. Some popular ones are Root Explorer, SU File Manager, and ES File Explorer.
• The Android SDK installed on your computer. To install the SDK, follow these instructions:
  1. Download and install the Android SDK. This should also install the USB drivers you'll need.
  2. If it doesn't install the drivers, then follow these steps.
  3. Plug your phone into your computer.
  4. Go to the settings menu. Navigate to Applications>Development>USB Debugging and check that box.
  5. Using the command prompt on your computer, navigate to the "Platform-tools" folder of the SDK.
  6. Type in "adb devices" (without the quotes) and hit the enter key. If your phone shows up (usually a crazy string of letters and numbers), then you're good to go.

Now let's say you have found a bootscreen that you really like and that matches your phones resolution (that's important). Sometimes they'll package it as a handy flashable .ZIP file that you can simply apply in recovery mode. Most of the time, though, you're going to download a bootanimation.zip file that will have to be installed manually.

TL;DR;

Basically, the idea is that we are going to be putting a new animation on our phone that will run instead of the stock bootscreen and, if we can't manage that, we'll replace the old one with a sucker-free one. We'll do them in order of difficulty. (Bonus points for you if you caught the reference in this section's title)

It is very important for me to note here that, for the purposes of this tutorial, everything is going to be geared toward the HTC Evo because that is the device I'm currently using. It has been brought to our attention that there are some variables across devices. The location of the file may be different on your device.

• Most devices seem to store their animation is /system/media/
• My HTC devices all store bootanimation.zip in /system/customize/resource/
• Some users have reported being able to load bootscreens into /data/local/ which is significant because /data/ is always writable and does NOT REQUIRE ROOT ACCESS. This has not worked on my EVO, Hero, or my friend's Droid Incredible.

If there are any other locations that work or don't work you can let us know in the comments and we'll incorporate them (thanks to all the people who helped me out with this information).

The Root File Explorer Method

This is, by a wide margin, the simplest method and in no way requires a computer. You can download the bootscreen directly to your phone and move it where you need it all on-device.

1. Install The App

Download and install one of the above mentioned root file explorers (Root Explorer, SU File Manager, ES File Explorer) or any other of your choosing. It just has to get root access.

2. Download your boot animation.

I mean...yeah. That's the point, right?

3. Backup (OPTIONAL)

You can either copy the original bootscreen and paste it on your sdcard/computer, or you can rename it bootanimation.bak and leave it in the original directory for safe keeping.

4. Copy/move

Copy the bootanimation.zip to the directory that it belongs in.

5. Reboot. Enjoy.

Reboot. Enjoy.

The Recovery Flash Method

The flashable .zip method is as straight-forward as straight-forward can be:

1. Put the .zip file on your sdcard

2. Boot your phone into the recovery console

3. Select "Flash ZIP from sdcard"

4. Find the .zip file

5. Flash it

6. Enjoy.

The ADB Method (AKA The "Aw, Dang It" Method)

For each phone the location may be a little different, but the idea remains the same. We're going to be swapping the bootanimation.zip that came on the phone with one that doesn't suck. I'll be using a Windows computer to do this on my HTC EVO 4G.
It's pretty simple if you're comfortable with ADB. Even if you're not, though, it's simple enough for you to pick up quickly

1. The Hunt

Find your animation. There are a multitude of places to find them, but I plan on showing a lot in the future, so let's just assume you want this one.

2. The Name

Rename the .zip file to "bootanimation.zip".

3. The Location

Place this .zip file in the same directory as the SDK's "ADB.exe" file. If you have a recent version of the SDK, this will be in the "platform-tools" directory. On older versions, it will be in the "tools" directory.

4. The Commando

Here's where the magic happens: We're now going to the command line or, as I call it, the commando line. That sounds way cooler.

5. Black Ops

Now, we'll navigate to the directory with ADB in it that we talked about earlier. (My Android SDK folder is named "ASDK" for the sake of brevity.)

6. Did You Plug It In Right?

Now we're going to run a command to make sure your phone is being recognized by your computer. Type in (without quotes) "adb devices" and hope that some crazy numbers and letter show up.

7. This Is Getting Real

Neat. We're ready to roll. We're now going to mount the system as read/write so we can mess with system files. My favorite method is the simple command "adb remount". Alternatively, you can type in "adb shell" and (on the EVO, as well as most other HTC devices) run the command "mount - o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system" then, subsequently, "exit". Well done. You are now the builder and destroyer of Android (provided it told you 'remount succeeded').

8. Back That Thang Up

We're in the home stretch now. Remember how we put the bootanimation.zip in the folder we also have ADB in? Here's why. We are going to back up the old bootanimation.zip then install our new one. The first order order of business is getting into the shell (basically using the command line in the phone using our computer as the window to see it). Type in "adb shell", hit enter, then type "su" and hit enter, just to make sure you're in superuser mode. Then we'll navigate to where the current bootscreen is on the phone. Mine is in /system/customize/resource/ so I'm going to type in "cd /system/customize/resource" then, just to make sure I'm right, I'll type in "ls" and verify the file is there. Now, let's make sure we have a backup in case we do something ridiculous and need to roll back. Type in "mv bootanimation.zip bootanimation.bak. Basically, the old one will sit there and, should we need to, we can rename it back to bootanimation.zip and it will be back to its old self. Issue the exit command until you're out of ADB shell.

9. Do The Deed!

This is it, guys. The final step. We will now issue the magic command:

"adb push bootanimation.zip /system/customize/resource/"

10. You're Done. Turn It Off And Enjoy.

The name of this step is also the entirety of the step. You did it.
While it may seem a little convoluted, this project is easy for beginners and SUPER easy for advanced users. It makes an awesome introduction to ADB and Android modding in general. I hope this helped you out and I look forward to seeing how all you crazy cats use and abuse this information to do hilarious, amazing, and entertaining things.

Source