Android on HP TouchPad Tablet

I wasn't sure what to write this week's main blog entry. I had received a comment from one of my friends regarding last week's blog entry about things that I don't like about the Blackberry Q10 which I wanted to address but I thought that I would write about what he said at a future date (probably as an interim blog entry or next week's main blog entry).

Instead, this week I will wrote about my experience having installed Android on my HP TouchPad last week. At least three of my friends had Android on their HP TouchPads and they recommended that I "upgrade" my HP TouchPad so that it would run a version of Android.

I had some problems installing Android on my HP TouchPad using my home computer for some reason (computer would not recognize my HP TouchPad when I connected it to my computer via the USB cable). I spoke with a co-worker and he informed me that it should work. During one of the off-periods at work, he helped me with the installation of Android on my HP TouchPad. I had attempted the same start-up steps at home but it didn't work for whatever reason. I did run into an issue after I installed Android onto my HP TouchPad which I managed to fix by going to an earlier version of Android (a version of CyanogenMod 9) as opposed to using the latest version (a version of CyanogenMod 10). For me, all the Android programs that I want to use work with CyanogenMod 9 (Android ) so for the time being I don't see any point in attempting to upgrade to CyanogenMod 10.

There are many websites on how to install Android on the HP TouchPad. Since I used a Windows PC to install Android on my HP TouchPad, I will obviously only write how to do this using a Windows PC (although I've heard that it is possible to do this also on a Mac). I will outline what I did and will include the files that I used in the comments section sometime this week. Prior to attempting these steps, my HP TouchPad was running an unmodified version of HP webOS 3.0.5. If your HP TouchPad is not running this version of webOS (or it has been hacked previoulsy), I recommend reverting to a clean version of HP webOS 3.0.5 on your HP TouchPad.

My instructions are geared towards people who are somewhat familiar with computers and know how to troubleshoot simple installation issues or go into certain directories using the command prompt. Regardless of whether you are or aren't such a person, I am including the usual disclaimer that I am not responsible for anything that might go wrong when you follow my instructions or use my files. These instructions and files worked for me and they should work for you.

The first thing that you have to do is to make sure that you have Java installed on your computer. You can get Java at their official site *HERE*. Depending on the version of Windows that you have on your PC, you can see if you have Java installed by going to Control Panel. For example, on Windows 7 computers, one of the ways of seeing if you have Java installed on your computer is by going to Control Panel, and then switching to the "Small Icons" view and you should see a Java icon. If you did not have Java installed on your computer and you installed it via the link above, I recommend that you reboot your computer regardless of whether you receive a prompt asking you to reboot since it is always good practice to reboot after any program is installed or uninstalled from a Windows-based computer.

Once you have Java installed on your computer, you will need to install/run a program called "Novacom". You can get the Novacom Universal Installer *HERE*. After installing the Novacom Universal drivers, I recommend rebooting your computer again. The Novacom drivers/programs should be installed in a directory similar to C:\Program Files\Palm. I tried to save some time and didn't reboot my work computer initially and my work computer wouldn't properly detect the HP TouchPad when I connected it to my computer using a micro-USB cable.

The next thing that you will have to do is put the ACMEInstall3 file into the directory containing the Novacom drivers/programs (in my case, it was in C:\Program Files\Palm, Inc).

At this point, connect your HP TouchPad tablet (which should already be powered on and in the standard HP WebOS desktop) to your computer using the micro-USB cable that came with your HP TouchPad. I used a 3rd party micro-USB cable and it worked without any issues (so results may vary). You should receive a prompt on the upper right corner showing the USB symbol. Tap this symbol and enter USB drive mode. After a few seconds you should see your HP TouchPad (as a USB hard drive or USB storage device) on your computer. When you see this, you must create a folder called "cminstall" on the root directory of your HP TouchPad using your Windows PC.

You will place all the files that I have in the cminstall folder (do not unZIP/uncompress the ZIP files which are contained within the cminstall folder) on the cminstall directory of your HP TouchPad. There are 4 ZIP files that must be in the cminstall directory of your HP TouchPad. If you are using Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 (and possibly Windows 8), you can simply just double-click on the ZIP file mentioned in my comments section later this week in order to view the contents of the ZIP file and drag and drop the cminstall folder onto your HP TouchPad storage device/drive (from My Computer or Computer)

After these 4 files are on your HP TouchPad, unmount your HP TouchPad from your computer by clicking on the "Eject media" icon on the bottom right corner of your Windows computer and selecting "Eject" for the device corresponding to your HP TouchPad. Leaving your HP TouchPad still physically connected to your computer, reboot/restart your HP TouchPad. To do this, tap the "Home" button on your HP TouchPad and then go into the Settings menu, click on "Device Info", then click on "Reset Options" and then finally click on "Restart". If following the above instructions, the "Home" button doesn't bring your HP TouchPad into the HP webOS home screen, it might be necessary for you to temporarily disconnect your HP TouchPad from your computer (and then wait until you are able to get the WebOS home screen and then plug your micro-USB cable back into your HP TouchPad and follow the rest of the steps to restart your HP TouchPad).

The moment your HP TouchPad begins to restart, the screen will go black. When the HP TouchPad screen goes black, press/hold the volume up button on your HP TouchPad. If you did it at the proper time, a large USB icon will appear on your HP TouchPad. When you see this USB icon, release the volume up key. Your computer at this point might install any necessary drivers. If it does this, wait until the drivers are successfully installed before proceeding to the next step.

On your Windows computer, call up (start/launch) a Command Prompt window and go to the directory where you placed the ACMEInstall3 file (probably in C:\Program Files\Palm, Inc). Now type: novacom.exe boot mem:// < ACMEInstaller3 and press the Enter key on your keyboard. In case you can't make out where the spaces are in the above command, the syntax of the command is novacom.exespacebootspacemem://space<spaceACMEInstaller3

At this point, the USB icon should disappear from your HP TouchPad screen and you should see a lot of scrolling text (with 2 Linux Penguins on the upper left of the screen). After approximately 10 minutes, your HP TouchPad should reboot and you should get the Moboot screen similar to the screen below. The Moboot screen only lasts for ~5 seconds before defaulting to the running of CyanogenMod/Android.

After your HP Tablet reboots and you wait for the CyanogenMod boot-up to finish, you should see the familiar Android homescreen. If you've used the files that I will include in my comments section below, your HP TouchPad should be running a rooted version of Android 4.0.4 with CyanogenMod 9 (9-20130512-NIGHTLY-tenderloin).

All the programs that I would normally use on my Android phone or Android tablet (GoogleMaps, Gmail, ClockSync, Twitter, Facebook, Angry Birds, LinkedIn, Titanium Backup, & Google Play store) worked without any issues. Most importantly Netflix worked without any issues. I was also able to run the Unblock-Us Manager Android Application. With my configuration, I didn't have any issues watching the Netflix offerings from the different countries (Canada, US, Mexico, Brazil, UK, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, & Finland) using the Unblock-Us service. The XMBC application also worked without any issues (it wouldn't run on my Acer Iconia Tab A101).

In terms of the performance of Android on the HP TouchPad, I find that it works very well. I would say that it is more responsive/faster than what I get with my Android tablet (Acer Iconia Tab A101).

In the one week that I've been using it, the only thing that didn't work well is the Android Face Unlocking feature. I believe that this might be because of the HP TouchPad's somewhat unusual dimensions/resolution.

After you have CyanogenMod/Android installed on your HP TouchPad, if you want to boot up into HP webOS, you only have to reboot your device and then use the volume buttons on your HP TouchPad to scroll to the "boot webOS" option in the Moboot screen. Once the "boot webOS" option is hi-lighted, you would then use the HP TouchPad's home button to select it.

The HP TouchPad will charge using the HP Touchstone Dock regardless of whether the HP TouchPad is booted up into webOS or Android.

A good link for more information of installing Android/CyanogenMod on the HP TouchPad can be found *HERE*.

As mentioned, I ran into an issue when I tried to install a version of CyanogenMod 10 (Android 4.1) on my HP TouchPad. There wasn't an issue with the install but when I tried to manually install the Google Play store (because it didn't install it automatically), I picked the incorrect Google Play store (gApps) and the keyboard application would keep crashing and restarting making the virtual keyboard on the Android OS useless. I tried to manually install an earlier version of gApps but this didn't fix the keyboard issue. Rather than spend the time to try to troubleshoot it, I decided to revert the HP TouchPad back to as much as I could to factory defaults using the HP webOS doctor and then starting from scratch using the CyanogenMod 9. You can download the HP webOS doctor from HP's webOS website *HERE*. I will include the HP webOS doctor program along with all the files/programs mentioned in this blog entry in the comments section below later this week.

If you have any questions/comments regarding this blog entry, please don't hesitate to leave a comment in the comments section below. Please note that the comments are moderated and any comment which contains a URL link (whether it is embedded or not) will automatically be labelled as spam and will not be posted.

HP Touchstone Charging Dock (for the HP TouchPad) Review

I managed to pick up an HP Touchstone Charging Dock (for the HP TouchPad) at a deeply discounted price during this past weekend  ("Black Friday" weekend sale) in Canada. Considering that the HP TouchPad was discontinued a long time ago and I still use mine mainly for reading PDF documents and checking my e-mail/Facebook (and watching YouTube videos), I didn't mind spending some money to get the HP Touchstone. I believe that the manufacturer's suggested regular price for the HP Touchstone Charging Dock when it was originally released (and HP had not decided to stop producing/selling their HP TouchPad) was $40.

The HP Touchstone Charging Dock looks like a typical stand for any tablet but it includes a USB cable which plugs specifically into the HP USB AC adapter (cylinder-shaped adapter). The USB cable must be plugged into the HP USB AC adapter and not to a computer or a laptop's USB port.

The charging unit works using a method called inductive charging. In order to charge the HP TouchPad, all the consumer has to do is place the HP TouchPad on the charging dock. You don't have to "plug" the HP TouchPad onto the HP Touchstone Charging Dock. Once the HP TouchPad is firmly on the HP Touchstone Charging Dock, the HP TouchPad will start to charge and within a minute or so, the date/time will appear on the HP TouchPad's display screen. There are 3 date/time themes so you can pick the one that you prefer.There are other themes that can be selected like a Facebook collage or for your HP TouchPad to scroll through pictures/images from your device.

In the short time that I've been using the HP Touchstone Charging Dock, I haven't tested whether the HP TouchPad takes takes longer to charge when it is on the dock as opposed to when it is plugged in directly to the USB cable. If it does take longer, it isn't a lot longer.

Having a charger at home (charger that came with my HP TouchPad) and having a charger at work (the HP Touchstone Charging Dock) is a big convenience since I use my HP TouchPad to read PDF documents/books.

If you have any questions regarding this blog entry, please don't hesitate to leave a comment in the comments section. Please note that the comments are moderated and any comment that contains a URL link (whether or not it is embedded) will automatically be flagged as being spam and will not be posted.

HP TouchPad Review

I've had my HP TouchPad for almost 1 year now and people have asked me what I thought about it and why I haven't written anything on it

I wasn't planning on getting an HP TouchPad when it first came out. After it came out for a few months, because of the dismal sales, HP decided to abandon the product and sell it at a huge discount ($99.99 for the base 16GB model compared with the original price of ~$499.99 for the same unit).

Even though it quickly sold out in stores across Canada and the US when HP discontinued the product and slashed the price to $99.99 for the 16GB unit, a friend of mine who worked for HP managed to get me one. From what I know, they were allowed to purchase 2 at the heavily discounted/discontinued price.

As of the date of this blog entry, the current firmware/OS on the HP TouchPad is v3.0.5. The tablet runs HP's webOS (which they purchased/got when they purchased Palm).

For me, the price that I paid for the HP TouchPad is probably the highest price that I would pay for it considering that there is very little application support/products for this tablet. I use this tablet mainly for quick browsing to check various news stories, check my e-mail, get PDA (calendar/contact) information, and read my PDF documents.

One of the things that I like about this tablet is that it supports Flash videos so I am able to watch videos from various news sites (CBC, CTV, etc.) on it. It also plays YouTube videos very well.

One of the things that I don't really like about this tablet is that the included Maps program is Bing maps and not Google maps. Google Maps does work on the tablet but this is obtained using the browsing experience and not a separate application. The tablet does support Google synchronization for contacts, calendar, and Gmail which I find to be very useful since I store my contacts and calendar items using Google and it synchronizes across my various gadgets (Android phone, iPhone, Blackberry, & Android tablet).

I find the battery life to be okay and based on my usage, I need to recharge it every 2 days or so. As I mentioned, most of what I use it for is to verify my e-mail, check my Facebook account (maybe update the status using it), get PDA information, and read my PDF documents.

The HP TouchPad charges using a standard microUSB cable but this cable must be plugged into a special adapter (roughly the size of a D-type consumer battery). The HP TouchPad won't charge by plugging it into most standard USB chargers that I've tried.

About 2 months after I purchased the HP TouchPad, I hacked it to increase the speed (overclock it) and disable some features that made my HP TouchPad seem snappier. However, earlier this year, I decided to revert back to using it non-hacked since I has having problems updating the firmware/OS.

I am currently considering putting Android on my HP TouchPad. There is a lot of information/instructions on the internet on how to do this and as long as it is stable and most of the HP TouchPad's hardware (Wi-Fi, speakers, etc.) still works properly, I would prefer using an Android device over a webOS device mainly due to the lack of 3rd party applications.

If you have any questions/comments regarding this blog entry, please don't hesitate to leave a comment in the comments section below. Please note that comments are moderated and any comments that contain a URL link or hyperlink will automatically be flagged as being spam and will not be posted.

Palm TX (Palm T|X) Review

I've had my Palm TX (or Palm T|X) for about 2 years and I thought that I would write a review on it since it can still be purchased from some retailers, some private sellers, as well as on eBay.

I've been a PalmOS user for about 8 years. As part of my job approximately 9 years ago, I was given a Palm III for my personal/work use. After having it for approximately 1 year, I was asked to return it to the department when I transferred to a different department within the same company. In the 1 year that I was using my Palm III, I was relying on it heavily for appointments, contacts, etc.. I had also purchased some 3rd party programs and found that since I relied heavily on a PalmOS device, I purchased a Handspring Visor Deluxe. After about 2 years, using the Handspring Visor Deluxe, I upgraded to the Handspring Visor Prism and later purchase a VisorPhone handspring attachment for the Prism. When my Visor Prism got somewhat physically/cosmetically damaged), I purchased a Handspring Treo 600. I later sold the Handspring Treo 600 and upgraded to a Palm Treo 650 (Palm had since purchased Handspring). After getting the Treo 650, I found that I did not have a lot of RAM on the device for 3rd party applications so when I saw the Palm TX on special, I purchased it in order to use with my Palm GPS bluetooth module and TomTom Navigator software.

The Palm TX has bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and has a 320 x 480 screen resolution screen capable of approximately 64,000 colours.. It also has approximately 128MB of non-volatile flash memory where 100 MB of actual storage capacity. It has an SD slot which supports SD cards up to 2 GB (does not support SDHC cards). It runs the PalmOS v 5.4.9. For those of you interested in whether the Palm TX supports non-SSID broadcasting Wi-Fi access points, it does. Because of the enhanced/large screen resolution for a PalmOS device, I find the PDA to be somewhat large.

I occasionally will use my Palm TX for web browsing, RSS reading, and Slingbox viewing since even though it is possible for me to do these things with my Palm Treo 650 or my Palm Treo 680, generally, the GSM SIM card that I put in these smartphones don't have access to the carrier's data network and I don't really like swapping SIM cards. I also have access to Wi-Fi access points at home and at work. I will also use my Palm TX occasionally to watch videos (using a 3rd party program called Kinoma Player) and listen to MP3 (using the included pTunes). Since I have a few dictionaries (including some translation dictionaries) installed on it, I will sometimes use my Palm TX to look up words.

In terms of the construction of the Palm TX, I find that it is constructed very well. My only complaint about it (or at least mine) is that the on/off button on the upper right corner of the device seems a bit difficult to turn on or off. The button is slightly recessed and sometimes when I press the button, my Palm TX does not turn on or turn off. Because of this, when I want to turn on my Palm TX, I will generally use one of the 4 shortcut buttons on it.

For those of you interested in my experience with using the Palm TX and SlingPlayer Mobile for the PalmOS, I find that it works quite well. The only thing is that after a few minutes of viewing, the audio and video will go out of synch. This can be temporarily fixed by disconnecting from the Slingbox, waiting a few seconds, and then reconnecting to the same Slingbox again.

If you have any questions/comments regarding my comments/review on the Palm TX (Palm T|X), please don't hesitate to leave a comment in the comments section.

PalmOne Treo 680 Review

I've been a long time user/fan of the PalmOS platform and I've been using my Palm Treo 680 for approximately 2 years. My previous PalmOS based smartphone was a Palm Treo 650. Before that, I was using a Treo 600 and prior to the Treo 600, I was using a Handspring VisorPhone.

One of the reasons why I purchased my Treo 680 is because I had purchased/found a lot of programs over the years that I wanted to continue using. Even though my Treo 650 was not broken, the Treo 680 had dropped in price and I found that the amount of memory was limited in my Treo 650 (~32MB on the Treo 650 as opposed to ~64MB on the Treo 680).

The Treo 680 is a PDA with quad band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz bands) GSM phone functions. In terms of the carrier's data network, the Treo 680 supports GPRS and EDGE. It does not support 3G nor does it support WiFi. Out of the box, it does not have GPS capabilities but with the proper software and a bluetooth GPS module, the Treo 680 can be used as a GPS.

The Treo 680 runs the PalmOS version 5.4.9. The processor is the XScale processor and the display is 320 x 320 (~64K colors). It comes with approximately 64MB of non-volatile internal memory. It has an SD slot (on the side) which supports SD cards and SDHC cards up to 4GB. The camera is capable of taking pictures 640 x 480 in size with a 2x optical zone. In my opinion, the picture quality is not very good but I generally don't use my cellphones to take pictures unless absolutely necessary.

I find the PalmOS to be relatively stable and most users can find almost any program that they want (provided that the PalmOS hardware supports that feature). For example, if you are looking for a stock program that updates via the internet, your PalmOS hardware must be capable of accessing the internet.

The Treo 680 comes with the built-in standard PalmOS PDA programs (Contacts, Datebook/Agenda, Tasks, Memo/Notes, WorldClock, etc.). It also includes an MP3 playing program called pTunes Basic v3.09 as well as an Microsoft Office compatible program called "Documents To Go Ver 8". If you want to use the MP3 playing program and regular headphones, you will need a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter. There are also other programs including an internet enabled web applications like"Web" (which is the built-in PalmOS browser) and a built-in e-mail program. The Treo 680 synchronizes with a PC via a special PalmOne proprietary USB cable or via bluetooth. Certain built-in programs as well as third party programs have conduits which when the user performs a synchronization with a computer, the program will also access the internet to get the information (ex: stock quotes, RSS feeds, e-mail, etc.)

What I like about the Treo 680 is the abundance of programs available for it. I've collected quite a few programs over the 8 years that I've been using the PalmOS platform. I have various multilingual dictionaries, games, etc.

What I find lacking about the Treo 680 is that it doesn't have wi-fi. This means that the only way to access the internet is to use the cellphone service provider's data service since some providers (such as Rogers) lock the ability of using bluetooth to access internet via their customized firmware.

If you have any questions/comments regarding this blog entry, please don't hesitate to leave a comment in the comments section.