Bodyguardz - Scratch-proof transparent film for electronic devices part 2

I've just installed my Bodyguardz just now. Not too hard, just need patience & perseverence. As I've told in Part 1, my application fluid leaked on arrival. I sent Bodyguardz an email & got a reply within a day. The lady that replied apologised & said the solution is merely water + baby shampoo (1 gallon water & 1 drop baby shampoo). Whatever is left in the bottle, I should just add water & should be ok. That's what I did. I'll tell you guys later about this...



I first installed the back panel - really hard/annoying, since it is not even... nice to look at, but hard to apply the skin. I think it's not gonna as good as I imagined it, but we'll have to wait & see. Then I installed the bottom bit, where the usb is, the middle part of this piece is quite small, making this piece more moveable, but eventually got it ok. Then the 2 side panels just below the back cover sides.



As I said, my application bottle leaked on arrival. I added regular tap water to the bottle. An annoying thing is that since the label on the bottle was soaked from the leakage, the print was peeling, so I had to wrap the bottle in a cloth to prevent the print from getting on my fingers. Some parts did get these pieces of print on/behind them, like the hard keys.



There was 1 piece underneath the hard keys which is 1 long & thing piece to cover it. Nice of BG to make this. Don't know how long it will stay though...

I made a mistake on the front side being that since it was another long & thin strip, I didn't have any guidance to where to put it. So there was a bit of overlap between this piece and the top piece.



I did not use the screen protector since I'm using the stock 1 that came in the box.

The pictures above makes out that it looks quite bad, but looking at it in front of me it doesn't.

All in all, not too difficult, just needs patience & perseverence...

Will post some pictures on the final product hopefully tomorrow night. Ideally should leave the device untouched for 24 hours. Going to use my trusty Prophet/818pro in the meantime.

Official HTC Touch Pro ROM Upgrade WWE 5.05.405.1

It's finally here! The official HTC Touch Pro ROM Upgrade that I mentioned in this post is finally here. Went a look at the HTC website yesterday & it was there. I have not had a chance to upgrade yet, because I've made this post while at work! I'm working till 10pm today, so might leave it till then or tomorrow night.

The version is the same as reported in the leaked ROM, but packaged differently.

RUU_Raphael_HTC_WWE_5.05.405.1_R_Radio_Signed_Raphael_52.58.25.30_1.11.25.01_Ship.exe

Improved Functions and Fixes
1. The display of TouchFLO 3D sometimes may appear cracked.
2. When taking a picture, the auto focus function may malfunction in some circumstances.
3. In some circumstances, the preview screen will become black after taking picture.
4. In some circumstances, the device may hang while loading TouchFLO 3D.
5. When hanging up a phone call, there may be a delay in the display response.

Get it here on the HTC site or you guys can download it via megaupload. You would need your S/N if you go to the HTC site. It is located underneath your battery.

Tell us how this improved your device in the comments section

Bodyguardz - Scratch-proof transparent film for electronic devices part 1

I've just received my Bodyguardz in the post today. If anybody doesn't know what they are, they are transparent film that's used to cover the whole of the device. Are you guys using a screen protector? Think of this as an all over device protector, a second skin to your device.

There are a few companies that I know that makes these skins/guards or whatever you want to call them. Bodyguardz, Invisible Shield, Best Skin ever etc. From the reviews I read, the material are all similar and protects the device well, but some people complain about the coverage of them not being adequate or the cutting is not perfect. Prices vary as well from skin to skin. These companies not only make skins for Touch Pro but a whole lot of other devices as well, most notably iphone/ipod, Sony PSP and some laptops as well.

I bought the Bodyguardz because they supplied 2 skins and they had a 50% off offer. Including postage, it was US$24.95. Not too bad, considering they offer a lifetime replacement as well. The Invisible Shield or IS for short was the most expensive out of the lot I mentioned, but apparently is the toughest & military grade, so it may justify the price. Best Skins Ever (BSE) was the cheapest but they do not have a Touch Pro model, only it's US variants like the Fuze or CDMA version. The difference being that the US versions do not have a front camera & buying this would block it out.



I'm a bit annoyed that when I opened the packaging, it was a bit wet. It turns out the application fluid bottle was not screwed on properly and all the fluid has evaporated.


Looking at the pieces them selves, it looks like my Touch Pro would be well covered apart from the action button or center circle button and volume button.







I've contacted Bodyguardz customer support regarding my evaporated fluid. Hopefully they can replace it. From what I've read, it's only mild shampoo/baby shampoo and water but as a consumer who found the goods to be "faulty" on arrival, I'd just like to mention it to them.

That's it for part 1. I'll wait the reply from Bodyguardz and get cracking on putting this skin on in the next update.

Personalizer 2.0 - Change your operator name to anything you want!

This small program can change your operator name to anything you want on your HTC devices but is said to work on all devices running Windows Mobile. It was made by a developer at xda-developers called NP9660.

Download the cab file here. Install on on to your main memory, not the SD card. It will prompt you what text you want to have in place of your operator name. That's it. If you want to change the text, just go to Start>Programs>Personalizer.



Some people were having trouble with HTC Home being turned on after a soft reset. To work around it, open "Personalizer StartUp.mscr". The last entry enabled HTC Home, changing the final value to "0" fixed the problem.

Video Encoding GUI Application

Here is a very nifty Video Encoder made by projection over at xda-developers. This was initially written for the HTC Touch HD but now also for other new HTC phones e.g. Touch Pro, Xperia & Diamond.

"Since there have been massive problems playing back video on the newer HTC devices, I thought I'd step in...Below is a GUI, to ease the pain of getting nicely watchable videos on the Touch HD, Xperia, Diamond and Touch Pro.Any device with MSM720x chipset should work, just make sure to select the correct video resolution.I would like to give a lot of thanks to tnyynt for helping me test and find the best parameters."

It can convert any video source to .mp4 format which is playable on our devices. You just need to use Windows Media Player Mobile to play these files with hardware video acceleration. If you use Coreplayer or others, it would not be as fast since they don't utilize hardware acceleration.

As you can see from the pic above, it has a simple GUI. Add your file by clicking "Add". Then choose your output directory. Choose the bitrate next, I just leave it on SD or you can customise it. The higher the bitrate, obviously the bigger the file. Next choose your maximum resolution - The Touch Pro is VGA (640 x 480), Touch HD WVGA or you can customise the resolution. Don't forget to tick "Crop to fit target aspect ratio". Initially I had the black bars on top & bottom but after ticking the box it was all good. You can analyze the file to see its properties. You can normalize audio but I can't be bothered. There is an option of subtitles, but on the forums, there was a bit of a problem. I don't use them, so don't know. Click on "Start" and wait for your file to be ready!

I've converted Kung Fu Panda (650Mb .avi DVD rip) to mp4 and all I can say is it plays excellent on my Touch Pro running WMP mobile! Conversion took about an hour I think - I set it to convert overnight on my laptop - HP Pavilion 2.00GHz Core 2 Duo, 2 Gb RAM running Windows Vista Home Premium. The converted file was 468mb. Somehow I can't make a screen cap of my WMP of this movie. I initially thought it was because it was full screen, so I minimized it but still can't capture it. Strange. More on CapSure, a nifty app for screen capture in the next post.

Get the file here and discuss it over at xda-developers

A new ROM for the HTC Touch Pro soon?

What is this I stumbled upon on xda-developers? Looks like a new ROM would be available to our Touch Pro's/FUZE etc soon!

Windows Mobile: 6.1 Pro (5.2.20764.1.4.3)

ROM Version : 5.05.00.00 (5.05.405.1 WWE)
ROM Date : 01/22/09
Radio Version: 1.11.25.01
Protocol Version: 52.58.25.30U

This new ROM was leaked by a guy funnily using the name __htc__. Seems like there are some improvements made, like new radio ROM & faster, more responsive pda-phone. There are still reports that this ROM still contains the dreaded GPS lag - which I have not had to be honest. Forumer are saying that there is no keyboard lag after sliding, TF3D is faster & apparently better 3G signal. Also mentioned is that the camera is a bit laggy as well. Seems to have better battery life according to reports.

At the moment it's WWE (worldwide english) and FRE (French) only according to __htc__. Once it's official, there will be others available.

Australian users have an update already! You need to put your S/N to get this update. Have not tried with mine, since I'm waiting for the UK version since I bought it from Clove.co.uk

I have not flashed this ROM yet, still waiting for the official WWE - if there are updates to be made for this version ROM. Also I use my Touch Pro a lot obviously, don't have much time to fiddle with a new ROM now. Of note I have done HardSPL by Olinex - which you will need to have to use custom ROMS, but not official ROMS from HTC.

Here's the link to the new Radio ROM: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YARH7DNT
Here's the link to the NEW ROM: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HYSKRKKC

Original xda-developers thread

Disclaimer: I would suggest to wait for a proper release from HTC, but if you want, you can try this ROM out. Report any bugs in the xda-developers thread above. HardSPL is recommended.

Update: HTC Touch Pro S2U2 skin - tPRO™ v0.2.0

Demonizator, the creator of the brilliant S2U2 theme for the HTC Touch Pro has made an update on this theme. It now supports landscape mode with a proper TF3D background & working battery meter and clock while charging. Another excellent update is that all of this is conveniently packed in a cab file. See the thread on xda-developers and choose which version you want - 24h clock, am/pm or small clock. So no more copying graphics files to the pda. Be sure to stop ilock.exe, then run the cab. After that run ilock.exe and you should be set. Download the latest S2U2 to make sure this theme works properly. This theme really complements TF3D...

Get the skin here

OMNIANO Beta - Piano for Windows Mobile PPC

OMNIANO Beta is a piano for our Windows Mobile ppcs. It is still a beta, but boy it feels like this is a real competitor to the iphone app! It is made by a developer in Korea called sheon

He made this for his Omnia, hence the name, but since it runs on Windows Mobile, we all can use this excellent software!

It looks really beautiful, like real ebony keys on a grand piano. Maybe it is because it's on a VGA screen but it supports QVGA as well. It supports QVGA, VGA, WQVGA & WVGA.

Installation is a breeze, either with a cab file or PC exe. I chose to install using the cab file and onto my sdhc card.

Once open, it shows the screen in landscape mode, fullscreen. The Omnia version from my understanding can utilise the accelerometer to turn the keys either way. This feature does not work on my Touch Pro.

There is no LED indicator since the Touch Pro does not have any LEDs to begin with.

The piano sound is excellent, not too sure how the developer did it. Record from a true piano?

The keys on my Touch Pro are a few miliseconds lag (not a big problem) from the time I press them & I hope it is resolved in the following versions. The right most key will not play & maybe it's the screens fault?

You can slide your fingers across the piano to have that 'wave' effect. The only problem is that you can't play proper notes - that is not the software's fault, but HTC, since the screen does not have haptic support.

Sheon also mentions that he will have user customisation/settings in future releases. Good!

Also noticed that if you go to the most right of the screen, the last 2 buttons play 'yes sir' in the vein of warcraft and a drum track respectively, which the developer made as joke! hehe

All in all, excellent 1st beta release from Sheon! congrats!

Features of OMNIANO:

* Fast Response PIANO KEYBOARD.
* Pretty good Sound Play and have no Delay.
* Full Screen Key
* Vibrate (M490, M495 only)
* 180 Rotate by Motion Sensor(M490,M495 only)
* Led Indicator by C position or F position
* Drag and Play
* 4 Octave(C3~c6)
* configuration by user(will be support)
* QVGA, WQVGA, WVGA support

Download OMNIANO beta here at sheon's site or discuss it here at xda-developers.