Storm OS v5.0

First thing yesterday morning I downloaded and installed the official Verizon release of the Storm OS v5.0. The install went without a hitch and after spending a good hour reconfiguring all the little things that get messed up during an upgrade, I was ready to go. I spent the whole day using it, trying to figure out what changed, etc.. and I have to say, there are no real cons other then the hassle involved in upgrading. Here are my thoughts.

Everything is faster
The accelerometer, the camera, responsiveness in opening apps, etc... It is not mind blowing, but it is noticeable. The worst part of the Storm for me has been when my fingers are just hitting icons too fast and the screen cannot catch up therefore throwing me into the world of some slow loading app that I do not need to use. While I am positive that will still happen, it should be far less often.

Everything is slicker
Tough to explain without a visual, but all the little things are just a little more polished. Opening and closing apps is done with a sort of fade/collapse visual. Touching icons has a glow. The boot screen has a progress bar that actually seems to work and a logo that lets you know that the phone is not dead. Scrolling has variable speeds and a little bounce (like the iPhone). Not a big deal at all, but it makes the phone seem more put together and professional.

Better word suggestions
While typing, you will see a list at the top of the screen of suggestions. You can click one to select it, but if you do not it lets you type whatever non-standard word you want. Before, it would auto select the suggested word which I hated.

Add/Remove Apps
The Applications list is way, way, way more user friendly and easier to work with. It also splits the apps up into 3rd party, add-on and core so you don't accidentally delete something you really, really need, like the Phone app!

Homescreen clickables
On the home screen, you can click the antenna and it will bring up the "Manage Connections" dialog. Clicking the clock will bring up the big clock app. Not sure if this was in the last version, but I don't remember it and I like it!

Bubbled and threaded SMS
Just a nice interface change. If you don't like it you can go back to the old way, but it keeps the thread together a little better in my opinion. Also, from what I have read, you can call directly from SMS screen while typing a message. I have not tested that yet, but it is something I have wanted to be able to do in the past.

In call switch button between keypad and main buttons
I am constantly on conference calls and never could figure out how to get back to the main screen where you can easily mute/unmute, go to speaker, etc... from the number pad (which I always had to enter to dial the call in code). Now, there is a button on the number pad screen that will take you back to the main screen. Nice addition.

Ring + Vibrate built in
I used a 3rd party app to do this, but now it's built in (finally). Saves just a little bit of application memory now that I can delete it.

Better Browser
Browser seems faster and more responsive, but it is hard to tell.

Volume Meter
When listening to music there is now a visual volume meter if you use the hard buttons on the side. That's a nice tough. Also, I think the control is slightly finer. I think there were probably only 4 different "steps" before and now there are probably a dozen.

All my apps work
I use a few key applications (listed below) and they all seem to work as good or better in OS 5 which is always nice.

• Facebook
• Google Sync
• GMail
• Google Maps
• Weather Eye
• YouMail
• ScoreMobile
• Pandora
• PatternLock
• Superfan
• Poynt

All in all, I think this is a very worth while upgrade. I usually lose 1XEV connectivity after about two days of use and I am not sure if that is because of memory consumption or what. A reboot always fixes it, but it is frustrating. I want to see if this problem goes away or at least takes longer happen. I will keep you updated!

XBMC PC

I just ran across a new dual core Atom machine (similar to the Asus). The Acer AspireRevo R3610-U9012. Definitely worth keeping an eye on. I will buy something sometime after the official Window 7 release in a few weeks.

XBMC Workflow

I originally posted about how I needed XBMC to have a shared backed. While this would be ideal, I think I have found a "workflow" that will work for me.

Initially, I thought that the XBMC database would be located on my main machine and it would be referenced using mklink from the PC hooked to the TV. This was because I assumed that I would be watching videos from my main PC using the XBMC interface. Now I realize that this does not have to be the case.

I modified the AdvancedSettings in XBMC, setting the "cleanonupdate" property to true. This will remove Library entries when performing an update when the files do not exist. This is perfect for me because I can keep watching videos from my main machine and just delete them when I am finished (which is what I do now) and XBMC will reflect this change at the next update.

Now I just need to get the libraries set up to back up to my NAS in a sensible way.

GlideTV

Is this the ultimate HTPC remote? Since I am going to be in the market soon, I will have to keep an eye on it!

XBMC Pros/Cons

Here is a pretty simplistic list of the pros and cons for XBMC. There are lots of pros, so I will keep it very simple. The cons are pretty damn specific and I will try to keep this listed updated as I find more nit picky things.

Pros

• TV Show Parsing
  I download shows via uTorrent and the RSS Downloader. The file names are not as my OCD would like them, so the fact that they automatically get parsed and pushed into the Library database is amazing to me.
• Movie Info Parsing
  Same thing with movies. The parsing is great because it is automated and it allows me to see info about the movie. When just looking at the name of a file, you sometimes forget what the hell the movie was about!
• Mark as Watched/Unwatched
  I love this for a million reasons, both with TV and Movies. There is a problem when two people share the system which I have listed in the Cons.
• Recently Added
  I love that there is a quick link that will show all of the recently added Movies or TV Shows. If you've been away for a while, it really helps.

Cons:

• The Daily Show
  Cannot parse TV Show names that are done by date, like The Daily Show. I know that this is being worked on right now and might even be in a nightly build, but I am not quite to the point of testing with non-stable releases yet.
• HD TV Shows
  Does not have any visual way for the user to tell between HD and non HD TV Shows. With a new skin (like AEON) this might be working already, but again, I am not working with nightly builds just yet.
• Shared backend
  Cannot officially share a database. I have hacked something together that works, but I cannot have more then one system running at the same time which will be a problem at some point. Not sure if this will ever happen.
• Mark as Watched/Unwatched without Profiles
  I know the theory behind Profiles and that it will allow different people to mark media differently, but it just does not work as seemlessly as I would like. Ideally, you could mark a movie or TV show as watched as a specific user without having to logout and back in.
• XBMC Remote for iPod Touch
  I love this remote. The only problem I am finding is that if I start a show or movie using it, stop it, then move to another location to start watching again, it does not remember where I was.
• Library does not Auto Update
  It seems to me that you have to manually run "Update Library" or restart the XBMC software to perform a update (as opposed to having an update run periodically or when it detects new files). This is not ideal and there seem to be some hacked together solutions (like xbUpdate), but it not perfect by any means.

XBMC Setup

I have been hooking my laptop up to the TV a lot lately. It started in the spring when I got my MLB.TV subscription going so I could watch Braves game and now I use it to watch the Saints via the NFL Superfan app from DirecTV.

Because of this, I have been thinking about getting a small, quiet PC that I can just leave by the TV. There seem to be a lot of contenders out there right now, but I need to find a balance between size, power consumption, power, features, etc... I think I have settled on the Asus EeeBox PC EB1012, but there is no price or release date just yet, so we'll see.

Since I pretty much know that at some point in the not so distant future I will be getting a PC to leave connected to the TV, I have been playing around with some different media center apps. Specifically, Boxee and XBMC. So far, XBMC has won me over, but I still have a long way to go before I make a final decision.

In this post, I want to talk about the tweaks I have had to make so far to get XBMC working correctly for me.

First and foremost, I need to be able to access one XBMC database from all of my machines in the house. I can do this by storing the "userdata" on one computer and pointing all other installations to it. I found out how to do all that here. Nothing too complex, just using mklink in Windows 7, but I do have to turn off all UAC to make life eaiser (don't really care about that).

Also, in all of my testing, I was in dire need of keyboard shortcuts since I don't have a remote setup just yet. Here is where I found that info.

As for the remote, I have a nice Logitech Harmony, specifically for the XBox 360 and I just got an IR receiver that I am hoping I can get to work nicely. I will post the details if/when I get it all figured out. Otherwise, I have already dropped the $2.99 on the XBMC Remote software for the iPod Touch. That works like a charm and is pretty amazing. I am also thinking about getting a Logitech DiNovo Mini bluetooth keyboard rig. It is pricey, but the thumb keyboard plus touchpad might be perfect for doing things outside of the XBMC interface.

The shortcomings I see so far are that there is no integration between XBMC and the other things I use like Superfan, MLB.TV and HULU, etc... I think there is plugin for Justin.TV which I need to check out (since that would let me watch live ESPN and some other sports). I know Boxee can do MLB.TV (or will be able to soon), but I think it may be lacking in a few other areas. For now, I will have to just load up HULU Desktop and see if I can get it working woth the Harmony remote setup.

That's enough for now. I just wanted to get some of this info posted while it is fresh in my head.