Rooted Android Phone + LCDDensity = No Longer Needing to Purchase a Dedicated eBook Reader

Need to read an eBook on the run? Sure there are plenty of Android based apps that will enable you to view virtually any eBook format out there... but, unless you have a shiny new tablet, the small screen size of most phones will make doing so an extremely tedious job.

What to do?? The obvious answer is to purchase a dedicated eBook reader like the Nook or Kindle... however, unless you are rolling in spare funds, doing so may very well be cost prohibitive.

Here is a workaround that I have found, which enables me to view eBooks on my phone (an HTC G2) without any trouble whatsoever.

Step 1. Root your phone. (See XDA developers for instructions specific to your device)

Step 2. Install the free LCD Density app from the Android Market. This app essentially changes the display resolution of your rooted device.

Step 3. Using LCD Density, change the screen density to a LOWER number than what it is currently set to... you will need to play around with these settings to find the density that is right for your device. On the G2, the stock density is 240 so I have found that a new density setting of somewhere between 190 and 200 works perfectly for me.

Step 4. Open your favorite eBook reader and enjoy the extra screen real estate!!!

Caveats: some custom launchers, such as Rosie (the HTC Sense launcher) are not written in a way that they can be dynamically resized, and will force close when the LCD density is changed... I suggest using Launcher Pro to avoid such an issue.

Editorial Note: I wrote this entire post from the bathroom of a Chinese Buffet... hurray for the Blogger Android app!

Download Torrents on Your Home Computer from ANYWHERE!

Have you ever been sitting in a coffee shop, browsing the web on your laptop, when you remember that you wanted to try out that new linux distro on your home PC? The only problem is that the linux iso you need is a solid 4GBs and you don't want to go through the hassle of downloading it on to your laptop (at very slow speeds) only to have to transfer it later... and you also don't want to wait till you get home to start the download? (I know that this seems like a very specific example, but this happens to me all the time)

Let's fix that!

Here is what you will need:

-Dropbox
-uTorrent
-Awesomeness

Here's what you do...

On your home computer, open your Dropbox folder and create a new sub-folder called "TorrentBox"

Now open uTorrent and go to Preferences > Directories and check the box that says automatically load .torrent files from the selected folder, and select the newly created TorrentBox folder. (the location of this setting may vary depending on which version of uTorrent you have installed)

Voila... now you can download torrents on to your home computer from anywhere that you have access to your Dropbox (laptop, friends computer, android-based device etc...) by simply dropping the .torrent file into the TorrentBox folder. Within seconds the file will begin downloading on your home computer to your default download location.

A Quick Review of Bon Iver's New Self-Titled Album

After spending some time with the new self-titled Bon Iver album, I must say, I love it.

Justin Vernon's vocals are familiar, but in a good way, and the light application of auto-tune actually seems to add a modern aesthetic to the music, which is often lacking from the indie-folk genre. I listened to the album on repeat for about 4 hours and I never got the feeling that I was listening to the same songs over and over again. 

Simply Beautiful! 5 Stars!

Album available in stores on 6/21/2011

www.boniver.org

Java Code Viewer + Dropbox = (Light) Developing on my Android Device!!

Two nights ago a heavy rain storm knocked out electricity to my home for about an hour. Unfortunately, this occurred just as I was putting the final touches on a programming project that I was anxious to finish. What to do? I checked my wife's laptop, only to find that it was seconds from death. It was at this point that I looked to my Android-powered smartphone.

Since I keep my Eclipse workspace stored in my Dropbox, it stood to reason that I could access the appropriate files via the Android Dropbox app and make the final adjustments that I wanted to... but there was one problem, no one wants to edit code in a plain text editor, it would be next to impossible to keep track of everything! In comes Java Code Viewer, an android app that opens .java files and displays them properly!

When used to open a file that was launched from the Dropbox app, this solution works quite well! Any time you save your code in Java Code Viewer, Dropbox automatically uploads the changes. 

Of course, Java Code Viewer doesn't possess any of the error detection, import assistance etc... that you have come to rely on in Eclipse, but it definitely provides a quick and dirty solution for making small modifications to your code right from the palm of your hand.