Android

Torchure 1.1.1 Released

I’ve uploaded a minor bugfix release for Torchure to the Android Market, which fixes the buggy systems preference not taking effect.

Don’t remind me of the irony…

Torchure 1.1 Released

My first Android Market update!  Hope this goes well.

This update includes:

• A new colour! You can change the screen to red, to help preserve night vision. This makes the torch less effective, mind.
  • To switch colour, either swipe sideways on the screen or use the new menu option!
• New preferences have been added to let you choose what colour you want on starting Torchure: white, red, or whatever you last used.
• The Lock Brightness preference has been fixed, and now actually works.  (Locking via pressing the trackball or the menu option worked fine)
• Added a new Hints & Tips screen, to highlight the little things I can’t fit anywhere else!

Torchure for Android

Ever found yourself in need of a torch, but only had your phone handy?  Look no further!

Torchure (for Android) is a pretty simple application.  It turns the screen white and, as default, whacks up the backlight to maximum.  I did say simple, didn’t I?

However, it also lets you change that backlight brightness (useful if, say, you’ve been to a particularly wild party and you need to step over some people without waking/blinding them) and lock it so you don’t go accidentally changing it.  Torchure is designed to work for you, not make you work for it!

It marks my first release on to the Android Market, and it requires no permissions whatsoever — it is a torch, after all.

Even though Google is telling me this link will not work, go check out Torchure on the market now!

And if you’re not using an Android handset, AndroidZoom has you covered until Google release their updated Market.

NB: The link does work (on Android 2.2). Guess they forgot to update the documentation.

Ogg Vorbis Encoder for Windows

I not so long ago made a post about using Ogg Vorbis for Ringtones on Android, as it considerably reduces the lag between getting a phone call and the phone actually playing the ringtone.  The same goes for music on the device–it just starts playing quicker.

Anyway, just now I realised that I didn’t link to any encoders for it.  So if anyone wondered what I used to accomplish the task, they’d be stuck!

So here’s a quick update to fill in in the gaps:

If you’re wanting to just convert some files you already have into Ogg Vorbis, I’d recommend oggdropXPd.  Open the program, right-click on the “dropbox” that appears to configure it, then when it’s all done, drag and drop the files you want to convert onto the dropbox, and wait!  It works fine under Windows Vista (32-bit) and Windows 7 (64-bit).

If you’re wanting to both edit a music track into a short ringtone and convert to Ogg Vorbis, Audacity did the job for me.  It’s open-source and supports a number of file types (including MP3 if you download a separate plug-in), so hopefully it’ll work for you too.  Again, it works fine in Windows Vista (32-bit) and Windows 7 (64-bit).

The settings I used for the Ogg Vorbis files on my G1 where 128kbps CBR.  You don’t need much quality because the phone’s speaker isn’t exactly an orchestra, and I used Constant Bitrate under the assumption it would take less CPU to decode. If you know otherwise, please let me know!

Use Ogg Vorbis for Lag-free Ringtones on Android

Why, do I hear you cry?

Simple really, here’s the story: when I first transferred various files to my phone for use as ringtones (one each for calls, texts, e-mails…) I used MP3s.  Thanks to the Rings Extended application in the marketplace I had no trouble in using them.

But one thing struck me as odd whenever I got a call (or text etc.); lag.  If I were to get a call right now, the phone would vibrate, the screen would turn black, and then a couple of seconds later the contact details show and my ringtone starts playing.  Not ideal.

So I decided to try something.  I set one of the standard ringtones that came with the phone as the current ringtone, and tried again.  This time the phone started vibrating and played the tone at the same time.

After that I had to figure out what format they used, since I had no idea where the files could be and what format they were.  I reasoned that Ogg Vorbis would be the format they’d use — an open-source OS with open-source ringtones.  Makes sense, right?

So I tried it: I converted those same ringtones I started out with to 128kbps CBR Vorbis files.  128kbps because I thought that a higher bitrate would lag the phone out (plus you wouldn’t hear a quality difference from the speaker anyway), and CBR because I thought it would be easier for the decoder to work with, though I have no evidence to back this up.

Voilà!  Suddenly my ringtones loaded a lot quicker, and no longer did I get vibrations with no accompanying ringtone (unless it was set to vibrate only!).

I haven’t tested other settings on the Vorbis encoder (different bitrates, VBR etc.), nor have I tested other formats aside from MP3 and Ogg.

Hope this is of help to someone that actually cares about this stuff.