Mihăiță Bamburic

Android custom ROMs are magic. They are an improvement over what some might already call the best mobile operating system in the world right now, Android. That is no small feat when its latest iteration, 4.1 Jelly Bean, is the starting point. How can it get any better? In the world of custom Android distributions one name comes to mind -- Codename Android.

When I got my Samsung Galaxy Nexus the first thing I did was to install Android 4.1 Jelly Bean because I wanted the extra oomph brought by it. Little did I know that even the mighty Jelly Bean will not suffice for someone like me -- curious and always willing to try new things. After about two weeks I got into modding my Galaxy Nexus, finally settling for what I think is the best custom ROM for my Nexus -- Codename Android. I toyed with CyanogenMod 10 and AOKP Jelly Bean, and it wasn't until Codename Android that I finally found the right one. Yummy...

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Sprint has (once again) announced the elusive Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is coming to its Samsung Galaxy Nexus variant. But when will you get it is the question. According to a Sprint employee, the update will slowly be rolled-out to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus S as well and it should take "little over a week" for all Nexus S owners to receive Jelly Bean.

Sprint surpassed Verizon in the "race" to deliver Android 4.1 that was nowhere to be seen on the LTE models at least until Sprint announced it. Sprint is rolling out Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean JRO03R, with a newer build number than the factory images posted by Google on its Developers page.

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What's the most popular sweet in the Android universe? It's not Jelly Bean, or even Ice Cream Sandwich, based on the number of devices accessing Google Play during the 14 days ending September 4. Gingerbread has the largest share on devices. Again.

Capitalizing on the number of Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphones and Google Nexus 7 tablets, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean manages to reach a 1.2-percent Android distribution. The number pales in comparison to its older siblings, but represents a 50-percent increase of 0.4 percentage points from a month earlier when the OS reached just 0.8 percent of Android devices.

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For the three months ending in July, Android and iOS combined US smartphone subscriber share reached 85.6 percent, according to comScore. That's 3.4 percentage points higher than April. Meanwhile, Research in Motion and Microsoft mobile platforms receded to 9.5 percent and 3.6 percent share from 11.6 percent and 4 percent, respectively. While comScore combines defunct Windows Mobile and Windows Phone, we henceforth refer to both using the latter name.

The smartphone market clearly consolidates around Android and iOS, leaving even less share for Windows Phone or BlackBerry. Android and iOS will soon face the new batch of Windows Phone 8 handsets, including the Nokia Lumia 920 announced today. However, as it stands now, Microsoft's mobile operating system has plenty of ground to cover to even count as a worthy adversary to the two major platforms.

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The Sony Xperia S smartphone comes with Sony's Timescape UX by default. Now, Sony has pledged to support a third-party project to port "stock" Android to the device.

In August, Android Open Source Project (AOSP) Technical Lead Jean-Baptiste Queru started a new experiment to port the vanilla version of Android to the Sony Xperia S, Sony's first post-Ericsson smartphone. Yesterday, the Japanese smartphone manufacturer announced its support for Queru's experiment by publishing the binaries for the Xperia S via the Sony Developer page.

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Samsung's recently-announced Windows Phone 8 smartphone, the ATIV is oozing with power and modernity, and that is what the Windows Phone software needs to finally become a dominant platform.

A platform needs flagship devices --smartphones and tablets-- to showcase what it can do in front of (possibly) billions of people, and hardware-wise it doesn't get any better than Android and iOS devices displaying their inner strength, their performance. Android takes first place and iOS second in the smartphone charts, and they have halo devices to represent them. Windows Phone, meanwhile, has been a mere shadow behind the two flexing their muscles. The Samsung Galaxy S III best represents Android as much as the iPhone 4S best represents iOS, but what does Windows Phone 7.5 have to show? A single-core CPU with 512MB of RAM and a GPU that was news a few years ago? That doesn't cut it...

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There is no denying that Ubuntu is one of the most popular and easy-to-use Linux distributions available and at the same time a viable alternative to the conventional operating system of choice, Windows. Before you decide to install, you should test it on a virtual machine first, which is where Oracle VirtualBox comes into play.

With Oracle VirtualBox you get all the benefits of installing Ubuntu on a virtual machine but without paying for virtualization software like VMware. It's powerful and easy to set up -- perfectly suited for the job at hand.

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Two months ago my colleague Patrick Roanhouse wrote "ADOBE FLASH IS DEAD -- on mobile!" and that looked like the end of Flash Player on Android, but as it turns out it is not. According to the BBC, Adobe has brought back Flash Player on the Google Play UK. What made them change their mind?

Flash Player for Android's UK revival can be attributed to pressure placed by strategic local partners. BBC requested the San Jose, Calif.-based corporation to postpone axing Flash Player, since the underpinning of the organization's iPlayer is Flash. The interesting bit is that BBC has refused to comment on its request to bring back Flash to Google Play, but acknowledges working with Adobe on an alternative video player -- sure sounds like great timing to revive it until a new product replaces iPlayer.

Flash Player might not be dead now, but don't expect it to live for long. The software is no longer updated and once the "strategic partners" get up to speed with newer technology, it will vanish forever. That is, if there are no unforeseeable requests in the future.

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Is it possible to still be an early adopter and only start using Linux full-time now?

Linux is the supreme software conquest for me, and one particular distribution has tormented my early adopter "lifestyle" -- Red Hat Linux. It's now long gone, abandoned by parent company Red Hat, though it was given a new lease on life through Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

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If you loved the original Galaxy Note, you're going to love this even more -- Samsung's new Galaxy Note II, which was announced at IFA in Germany today. It is packing even more processing power than the mighty Samsung Galaxy S III and it brings some beans along with it...

The Samsung Galaxy Note II will ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and Samsung's TouchWiz UX out of the box. A 5.5-inch 720p Super AMOLED display sporting a 1280x720 resolution dominates the front of the new smartphone. It is packing a 1.6 GHz quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM. It comes with a 1.9 megapixel front-facing camera while on the back there is an 8 megapixel camera with LED flash. Bluetooth 4.0, USB 2.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, MHL and NFC take care of connectivity with A-GPS and Glonass support added as well. The usual array of sensors including an accelerometer and digital compass are included along with a 3,100mAh battery that powers the device. It comes in 16/32/64GB versions while a microSD card slot will accommodate up to 64GB of additional storage.

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Gone are the days when setting up and using Linux was a cumbersome experience, and what better way to see than trying Ubuntu -- one of the most popular and easiest-to-use distributions available. Ubuntu has tempted many Windows users to make the switch to open-source, free-to use-software.

One of the easiest methods to test Ubuntu is to install it on VMware Workstation. You get all the benefits of having Ubuntu installed but none of the hassles attributed to the process, because it's all happening in a safe virtual environment.

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CyanogenMod 9.1 and NFC payments -- curious already? The CyanogenMod team has announced a joint partnership with SimplyTapp to offer Near Field Communication payments for the Android modding community along with their latest custom ROM, CyanogenMod 9.1. The NFC app is named Tapp!, and it is offered as a separate download to the popular CM ROM.

SimplyTapp is founded by Doug and Ted, two "CM enthusiasts" that have contributed towards extending the NFC capabilities as well as to the development of CyanogenMod. So how does it work?

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In my previous post, I explain how to install Windows 8 on VMware Workstation. But some of you may not have a license to the software and would choose VMware Player instead.

Either option should be preferred by anyone not ready to put Windows 8 into production. Virtualization offers many advantages for testing the new operating system, while minimizing effects on your primary PC.

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Windows 8 released to manufacturing earlier in this month (wow, it seems longer ago) and the Enterprise version is available for download as a 90-day trial directly from Microsoft. If you want to test the new operating system before the October 26 public release you can download and install the ISO.

Virtual machine is another option, and one less likely to disturb your workflow or upset the comfort of your current Windows settings. We suggest using VMware Workstation and provide here this how-to guide.

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After Qualcomm spilled the beans, LG officially announced the Optimus G, the world's first quad-core smartphone based on the Snapdragon S4 Pro processor to also include LTE connectivity. The LG Optimus G will be rolled out in September in Korea with global availability to follow after. Look out Samsung Galaxy S III, there is a new flagship smartphone in town...

The LG Optimus G has a 4.7-inch TrueHD IPS display (LCD) that sports an unusual 1280x768 resolution with a 15:9 ratio, packing a fast Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor with a quad-core 1.5GHz Krait CPU, Adreno 320 GPU, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, a 13 megapixel rear-facing camera with a 1.3 megapixel camera available on the front, 4G LTE connectivity, USB 2.0, Wi-Fi, A-GPS, MHL, DLNA, NFC and Bluetooth 4.0. The device weighs 145 grams and measures 131.9 x 68.9 x 8.45mm. A 2,100mAh battery is powering the LG Optimus G that is running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

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