Sense 5 Toolbox the best customizer for HTC Sense 5 based ROMs

If you havent used it yet - you really should. Im talking about the "Sense 5 Toolbox" application, made initially for Android Revolution HD. In the last few weeks the popularity of this application reached an unexpected level, and we believe its a reason to celebrate.

More details about the Sense 5 Toolbox can be found on this blog, under "Sense 5 Toolbox" link on the right panel. Or, just click here.

Why Sense 5 Toolbox?

The application is an answer for 2 basic issues: many users wants to customize their OS as much as possible, but currently available solutions similar to Sense 5 Toolbox are very limited when it comes to the possibility of using them on most custom ROMs.

Android Revolution HD is known to be a "stock-looking" ROM, which was always the most important aspect for many users, who were looking for a stable and well known custom ROM. However, having a custom ROM with such popularity brought our attention to many users, who were looking for a stable custom ROM, but also with a little touch of customisation features - like displaying the battery percentage, or being able to re-order or re-design some part of the UI. This leads to two different approaches:

1. having a custom ROM full of many more or less advanced features coded into the framework, which always ends up with all sort of issues, bugs, waiting a long time for a new ROM version based on freshly released official OS update etc; or
2. having a custom ROM like Android Revolution HD, close to stock with just a few changes under the hood to make Android users life easier, combined with a standalone application like Sense 5 Toolbox.

The result is what most users are looking for: stock looking by default, a stable and optimized custom ROM - but with the capability to change many things inside the OS.

With Android Revolution HD and Sense 5 Toolbox you have:

1. fast updates when a new OS is released/leaked,
2. a stable custom ROM,
3. the capability to customize your OS,
4. great performance because of the tweaks under the hood,
5. many features not available on the stock ROM.

The Sense 5 Toolbox is under continuous development. More and more features are coming with each new release and the "to do" list is quite large.

In the background, another project is still alive and under heavy development too. Im referring to the "Revolution Toolbox" application, announced in this post few weeks ago. Its still being tested, however we are getting close to the first public beta. Just one little secret I can say out loud now - Revolution Toolbox and Sense 5 Toolbox will "connected" in a particular way. Cant say more for now, stay tuned!

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The HTC M8 to be launched on 25 03 2014

It seems that we finally know the date – 25.03.2014 looks like the day when HTC will launch their new flagship device and the HTC One (M7) successor – HTC One M8 which is rumoured to be called "HTC One+" or "HTC One 2" or just " HTC One (M8)".

About the device itself we know pretty much already. Recently we wrote about the design (The HTC One 2014 (M8) design exposed) and weve seen some popular mock-ups made by hamdir in HTC One 2014 (M8) target renders, a visual compilation of all the leaks. I must say this all looks promising and we still hope to see HTC M8 equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 instead of an already one year old Snapdragon 800 SoC.

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Band Aid 30 on Google Cloud Platform There’s more than one way to skin a Web server

Posted by Miles Ward, Global Head of Solutions, Google Cloud Platform

Cross-posted on the Google Cloud Platform Blog.

As the most recent and deadly Ebola outbreak spread in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the global philanthropic community sought new and innovative ways to raise money for much needed awareness and relief. Band Aid 30 was imagined as a modern echo of the original Band Aid’s successful campaign to address hunger in Africa. A global team immediately set out to organize a live performance that would feature dozens of the world’s top music artists.

Sounds a bit ambitious, right? In this case, as with many ventures that make a true impact, the team behind the scenes was a lot smaller than you’d think. The number of developers responsible for deploying the website for this fast-paced, globally critical project: two. Mukesh Randev and Jonathan Horne, web developers from a cutting edge media agency in the UK called Adtrak, took the job on with great urgency. A couple of nice chaps in Nottingham, trying to change the world. Well, ok, mostly trying to keep the website online.

The project came together in just shy of 14 days, so things were a bit frenetic. The logos changed 17 times. Layout and top billing were in constant flux. The front page had UK and US donation links… or maybe just UK? Looming in the back of Jonathan’s mind was the fact that when this site goes live, and several dozen artists with an aggregate 100+ million twitter followers all invite the world to donate, the traffic would be coming fast and heavy.

They were using Google Cloud Platform, which was a bit new to them, and they were really eager to set up automatic scaling so that they’d be able to handle the load. They were also using Google DNS to direct traffic to a Google Compute Engine instance hosting Wordpress and using a local instance of MySQL as the database.

As I explained to Mukesh and Jonathan the standard best practices required to operate a dynamic website like this correctly (e.g., use a load balancer, use replica pools, use autoscaler, and move MySQL to CloudSQL with MemCacheD, and configure WordPress for performance), an idea struck:

Miles: “Hey, what dynamic stuff are you running through WordPress?”

Mukesh: “Well, really nothing. All payment processing is offloaded, comments are using disqus, but that’s really just for layout. And so the PR/media team can make updates on the day of the event.”

Because 100% of the site was static, rather than creating all of the above services, we simply copied the Band Aid 30 website to Google Cloud Storage. Cloud Storage is integrated into the Google front end, a powerful distributed edge routing and caching system that provides incredible performance for serving static content. Just imagine how much content is being served through this system for YouTube, Google Play, Picasa... it’s staggering!

Copying the site might sound complex, but let me assure you, it’s not. In fact, it’s exactly three short lines of code at your command line prompt:

//go get my website, make sure you go to an empty folder first
wget --convert-links -q --mirror -p --html-extension --base=./ -k -P ./ http://ipaddressforyourstagingserver

//put that website in the cloud
gsutil cp -R * gs://www.yourrockingwebsite.com

//let everyone read it
gsutil -m acl set -R -a public-read gs://www.yourrockingwebsite.com

That’s it! This solution had simplicity written all over it.

Simplicity also meant cost savings. The dynamic setup – which is obviously more functional – allows lots of simultaneous site editors, data-driven features and richer logging, but is also substantially more expensive to operate. We think all of that would’ve looked something like this, and cost in excess of $10,000 USD per month.

Now, compare that to what we actually built.

It only cost $9.17 (yes, you read that right) to run this production website on launch day, without a single performance hiccup or any risk of operational crisis. It just worked.

That’s a 99.92% discount from our original approach. Assuming all other costs of Band Aid 30 are zero (clearly they aren’t), this would represent a 40,621,592.14% ROI based on their smash success of raising over £2.5 million GBP. Not too shabby ;)

We’re really excited about the positive impact in Ebola victim’s lives that Band Aid 30 is making, the outstanding execution under pressure that Mukesh, Jonathan and the whole Adtrak team delivered (in less than 14 days) and our opportunity to help in this little way.

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Add to dos to your Google Calendar using Reminders

Posted by Vijay Umapathy, Product Manager

(Cross-posted on the Official Gmail Blog.)

Our calendars should help us make the most of our time — scheduling meetings at work, remembering brunch with friends, and keeping track of all our other commitments. But often our to-do list is elsewhere, separate from the Calendar that organizes our day, and we end up overcommitted or miss something important because we forgot to check our list.

Now theres a single way to manage your day: starting this week, you can create Reminders in Google Calendar to keep track of your to-dos alongside your scheduled events.

Reminders stick around
You might already create calendar entries to remind you to call the doctor or pick up groceries on the way home. But while those entries come and go, Reminders stick with you over time so you can track them until they are actually done. If a Reminder isnt completed, it will appear at the top of your Calendar the next day. And the next. When you do finally call the doctor or pick up those necessities, just swipe the Reminder away ... and youre onto the next to-do.

Reminders help with the details
Another way Reminders are more useful than events is that Calendar adds things like phone numbers and addresses automatically. So if you add a Reminder to make call or run an errand, the number or address will be right there when you need it. Just like Inbox by Gmail, Calendar uses information from your contacts, as well as Googles knowledge graph to provide this extra bit of help.

Reminders work across Google
You can also create Reminders from Inbox, Keep, and Google Now. This means you can create a Reminder when youre checking your email and it will show up on your calendar right away. Plans change? Just move the Reminder to a better time. Or if your hands are full, you can record your Reminders in Google Now ? like, "Ok Google, remind me to buy birthday candles" ? then mark it as done later in Calendar.

Reminders will be rolling out this week with the latest versions of Calendar on Google Play and the App Store. And dont worry, were working on bringing Reminders to the web as well.

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AppyParking directs drivers to free parking spots using Google Maps APIs

Posted by Dan Hubert, CEO and co-founder of AppyParking

Editors note: Today’s guest blogger is Dan Hubert, CEO and co-founder of AppyParking. Read how AppyParking is using Google Maps APIs to help more than 100,000 drivers find real-time available parking spots in congested London areas and show general parking information across 10 nationwide cities.

Parking in London is notoriously challenging. I’ve had to circle the block dozens of times before finding a spot. One night before a show at the Royal Albert Hall is particularly memorable – there was a yellow line on the curb that spanned hundreds of yards in front of the venue, but it wasn’t clear if I could park there. After parking, I found a sign two streets down, saying parking was permitted, but only during the specific window I was there.

This was one of many experiences that inspired me to create AppyParking, a mobile app that uses Google Maps APIs to help drivers across the United Kingdom understand parking regulations and find open spaces. AppyParking serves as a comprehensive database for parking information, detailing what colored curbs mean and the specific rules depending on the time of day. The app color codes parking spots to show drivers where there’s free parking, where restrictions apply and where special types of spaces – such as electric-car charging and motorbike spots – are located. For example, red means restricted, and green means free.

My co-founder, Enric Requena, and I chose Google Maps APIs for the mapping solution to provide rich, reliable data that’s accessible via a user-friendly interface. The app pulls data in varying formats from many sources, so Enric and I developed the Parking Platform, which converts different formats into a usable API. That data is integrated and layered on top of Google Maps using Google Places Autocomplete API for Android, iOS and the web.

With other location-specific developer tools from Google, we’re able to provide our users with a more meaningful and contextual experience. Google Street View shows users where free parking spots are from a 360-degree view and street view. The Directions API is particularly useful in providing driving directions to open parking spots.

We’re also helping commercial fleets find parking information, reduce time spent looking for spots and improve fleet productivity. Fleets pay more than four million pounds per year in parking fines, so knowing where parking is available is extremely valuable for their bottom line.

AppyParking has helped more than 100,000 users find parking spaces faster and with less stress. We’ll continue to expand our app to provide more actionable information for drivers and have added confidence knowing that we can rely on Google Maps tools.

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Bricocenter’s own improvement project staying in touch with customers and employees using Google Apps for Work

Posted by Riccardo Zanni, Chief Technology Officer, Bricocenter

Editors note: Today’s guest blogger is Riccardo Zanni, Chief Technology Officer of Bricocenter, a chain of 77 home improvement stores in Italy with headquarters in Milan. Bricocenter uses Google Apps for Work to help employees share useful information with colleagues and stay in touch with customers in the store and on the road. 

Think about those flashes of inspiration you have when you’re in the middle of a DIY project — like finding the perfect bathroom sink, or a lounge chair for the terrace. We want Bricocenter to be the first place people think of to make that inspiration a reality. Our sales teams work hard to connect to people in their communities and help with their DIY projects, and we’re building and strengthening these customer relationships even more with Google Apps for Work.

Before we started using Google Apps, our 1,400 employees were largely disconnected from customers and from each other. We previously used Microsoft Office 365, but the aging PCs in our stores ran the applications very slowly – and in some cases, didn’t allow employees to use email at all. Each store has as many as 10 people sharing three PCs. Slow software forced sales people to take more time to read and answer email, which meant less time spent on the sales floor helping customers. Also, we were limited in how many software licenses we purchased due to their high cost, so not every employee had an email address through our email service provider or access to productivity apps.

Because our previous solution couldnt be easily used on a web-based browser, we were told that the only solution was to upgrade or replace all of our store PCs in order for the software to work the way we needed. Even worse, we’d suffer several days of email downtime during the changeover. Needless to say, this plan didn’t make sense for our budget or work environment.

We think technology should follow the way we work – not vice versa. That’s why we chose Google Apps for Work, and partnered with Google Apps Reseller, Revevol, to help us through a seamless migration process to ensure our teams could work the way they wanted.

Google Apps for Work didn’t require hardware upgrades and it functioned well with our existing PCs because it can be accessed from any modern browser. Every employee received a Gmail address without the need to purchase extra licenses or create time-consuming group profiles, as we had to do with our former solution.

Our choice of Google Apps dovetailed perfectly with our pilot plan to outfit 500 sales people with smartphones, so they could stay connected to colleagues and customers outside of the stores. Now they can access email and company documents on their phones, and stay in touch with store managers, colleagues and customers.

Faster, wider access to email is only part of our Google Apps story. People are using Google Drive to store documents and presentations that would have been impossible to collaboratively create and share with our previous provider. Now that all employees have Gmail addresses, everyone can use Google Apps to create presentations and share them with all of their coworkers.

Anyone at Bricocenter, even people who dont know any HTML code, can spin up a site in just a few clicks with Google Sites. For example, our finance department created their own internal site to share helpful content – embedded easily in the site from Google Slides – about best practices for accounting.

Google Apps helps us to get more work done faster. I recently needed to ask store managers about the performance of the GSM mobile networks in their stores. Instead of waiting several days for email responses, I used Google Forms to create a survey for store managers, and sent them the survey links using Google Forms. I collected all the feedback I needed in just one day.

We often talk about the importance of getting closer to our customers as a core company value. Google Apps shrinks the distance between store employees and customers, between employees and managers, and between work and home life so more dream DIY projects can become a reality.

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HTC Sense 6 0 Bluetooth security issue explained

Bluetooth is not a new technology and has long been associated with hands free headsets but with newer devices over the last few years it has obviously evolved into a technology that connects to printers, headphones, speakers, cars and of course other phones.

It wasnt long ago that I still used a Microsoft Zune with my phone sitting idle as I didnt trust the battery or it didnt have the capacity to store my music library, it has only been due to looking into the issue I am going to describe that I have begun to consider using a Bluetooth headset, reflecting on the pain of trying to untangle my headphones as I make my daily commute into the city.

But I digress, I made a discovery on the new HTC One M8 (originally noticed on the M7 port by rider5512) that when I shared had a few other users concerned about using Bluetooth securely.

One of the advantages of being an early adopter and someone who has owned the previous iteration of a flag ship model is that you quickly spot the changes that have been made and one of them was a change in the Bluetooth setup where the ability to set a visibility time out was no longer present and the only options I could see for Bluetooth were on or off.

I checked some other devices, including the Sony Xperia Tablet Z (running the latest nightly of Cyanogenmod 11), the HTC One M7 and the LG G2. I also saw, via a quick Google search that this was standard for Apple devices.

Here you can see that same interface on the HTC One M7 (on Sense 5.5) with visibility time-out options from Cyanogenmod 11 showing on the right:

Of all the other models I checked, only the HTC One M8 lacked this visibility option.

So why might this be a concern?

If your device is visible it means that anyone with a Bluetooth connection can see it, there have been pranks with the name Bluejacking where you can be sent unsolicited text message and pictures which are mostly harmless or as you imagine explicit but nothing more than nuisance, with no data being stolen.

In more extreme cases there is something that is called Bluesnarfing (which sounds ridiculous I know) where an attacker can change or copy information from your phone such as your phone book, address book and calendar or even taking it over completely. Obviously this situations are rare and extreme and as a smart reader of this blog, you are likely avoiding it.

At the very least you will be exposing your Bluetooth address to others, for the paranoid Bluetooth can also be used to track you. Certainly if more people in Hollywood were able to disable Bluetooth visibility the cast of Person of Interest would certainly have to do more work than forced pairing.

Having a visible device will also increase battery consumption!

I asked Jason Dunn, the current outgoing Senior Manager of the HTC community about this and he quickly got a few details from me and escalated it as initially he thought his was current practice as it didnt seem to be broken function on the M8 but the lack of option altogether.

In less than a week (a credit again to Jason and HTC for working closely with the community), Jason was able to give me a simple yet delightful answer.

In simplest terms, the device is only in discover mode, while you are present in the Bluetooth settings screen.

Again, so simple but that has two strong reasons:

• You won’t accidentally leave the device in a discoverable state.
• For non-technical end-users it provides a simple yet effective way for them to easily connect their device to other Bluetooth devices.

You can see a quick demonstration below, on the top my Xperia has been unable to find my One M8, on the bottom (and you will have to take my word for it) is in the Bluetooth settings screen and therefore visible.

Basically, HTC have done a great implementation for end users that does not compromise security at all! Once paired the devices will continue to function and connect as you would expect!

On a final note, it is very sad to see Jason moving on from his position at HTC, but I continue to look forward to his thoughts on Twitter and I already had the pleasure of meeting his replacement, Laura Kimball, at the HTC London meet last month.

Great job HTC!

Have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) below this post!

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