Linux

Yesterday, I took part in a panel at the local Kitchener Waterloo Linux Users Group on Earning a Living with FLOSS

Ubuntu decided several months ago to forgo its policy of sticking with Firefox 3.6, and go with the latest versions from Mozilla.

With Firefox 13 running on Ubuntu 10.04, I had good performance, and did not suffer from this problem that I am about to describe. The only issue I faced was excessive disk activity and that was fixed by disabling the FireBug extension. Other than that, Firefox was speedy and responsive.

Note: This article is Android version dependent. Before you do it, you have to upgrade your phone. Use the article on Making your Sony Xperia Arc faster using Android 2.3.4 Global Generic 4.0.2.A.0.42.

Root your phone

Root your phone using zergRush.

Remove the junk applications

$ adb shell
$ su
#

If you have a slow Sony Xperia Arc, then probably you have Timescape and carrier bloatware that makes your phone slow (e.g. Rogers in Canada). In this tutorial, I will explain the steps that I did to make the phone considerably faster.

Install PC Companion and Update Service

In order to flash a new ROM on your phone, you will need first to install Sony Ericsson's PC Companion as well as Update Service on your Windows computer. This is needed so that the required USB drivers are installed and configured.

Install Flashtool

You can root a Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc from Rogers (Canadian mobile phone network), using the zergRush method.

The method works for Xperia Play and other models as well.

For this, I used an Arc running Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread.

Using Windows

Follow the instructions on the above page.

Using Ubuntu

1. Download the package.

wget http://ubuntuone.com/7mD63kpsKzGmaou5hcftBV

2. Rename the package.

mv 7mD63kpsKzGmaou5hcftBV zergrush.zip

A very nice surprise from Sony Ericsson. Even though Android does not have full and official support for Arabic until Android 4.0, their handsets do have very good Arabic support by default, even handsets sold in the USA and Canada.

Arabic in Sony Ericsson Xperia Android phone

If you have Android 2.1 or 2.3 and updated it to the latest update from your carrier, then you do have Arabic support. To check if it works, then just visit BBC Arabic and see if Arabic shows correctly and the letters are connected.

Enabling Arabic keyboard

To enable Arabic typing, you need to press Menu, then select "Language and Keyboard", then under "Keyboard settings" select "Default input", then select "Writing Languages", and check "Arabic". You will then see a language switching icon on your keyboard (the "globe" symbol).

Not only does Arabic work well, the font looks much better than what is in CyanogenMod for example.

This is a a list of Android applications that I currently have on my phone. Some are more often used than others, but all are useful.

These apps are running on my Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, which has Android 2.3.3 on it. Most of them ran on the Sony Ericcson Xperia X10 as well.

ADW Launcher is a fast and feature rich home application replacement. Use it instead of Sony Ericsson's TimeScape and your phone will feel faster.

This is great news!

Sony Ericsson decides to cooperate with independent custom Android ROM developers.

They started with publishing steps on how to unlock the boot loader, and how to build the Linux kernel for Xperia phones.

Thanks Sony Ericsson ...

Since I use Linux exclusively, and have to interface with clients using various Windows technologies, open standards are an important aspect of our tech-life. For example, we use OpenOffice to read Word/Excel/Powerpoint files, and so on.

One thing that comes infrequently is the need to login to a corporate virtual private network (VPN) that uses Cisco's Easy VPN.

On Dell's web site, there is an Ubuntu extolling its virtues.

Overall this is very good publicity for Linux, Ubuntu and Open Source, even though I disagree with some wording (e.g. on why Linux is secure).

Here are the highlights