Database Users

[Q] Newbie needing advice please

Wow, talk about confusing, the A7 is a whole new world to me.
I've had computers for years, currently I have two running XP & 7, plus I have two laptops running XP & 7. I understand a lot when it comes to computers, but the A7 is so different.
I've downloaded & printed the User Manual and I have read it several times. I've read numerous posts on this forum and now I'm confused. I feel so dumb. Too many words that I don't understand. I want to learn everything I can about running every aspect of this tablet, but it's like just as I learn one thing, the next time it doesn't work that way.
I need more reading material. Whether it be links to posts, books to read, anything to help me understand what I am doing. I make notes of things I have read so that I will remember what to do next time. Post something to help me, PM me or even email me.
I will be so greatfull for any help given.
Thank you

The user manual you can download on elocity's site is useless because there is a lot of things that were never edited out to match the actual release version of the tablet.
As far as computer knowledge and relating it to the a7 or android in general, windows knowledge will not get you very far. A good working knowledge of Unix/Linux will give you a much better idea of what's going on behind the scenes since android is based on Linux (loosely, in my opinion) but still functions very similarly.
If you have any programming or web design experience, I would recommend downloading the android sdk and do some playing around with simple programs. Also with the sdk you can make a virtual android device to monkey around with without fear of messing up your new $300 toy I use eclipse as my development environment in Linux, not sure what a good windows alternative would be, but the structure of an android app is pretty easy to follow. There are example programs and source available on the android developer site developer.android.com if I remember correctly (same place to get the sdk). And the language itself tends to be pretty similar to writing a Java app.
I've probably missed the mark completely on the information you were trying to find, but if you are anything like me, you'll find hours (years if it gets you going down the Linux/Unix path lol) of obsession with just this info.
Hopefully it gets you on the opensource band wagon (the reason I love Linux/Android)

Wow...where to start? Well, you got that you turn it on and slide the lock to the dot to unlock. Then you are in a "home page". There are 5 of them. there are dots at the top of the screen showing which home page ur on. Usually the center one. Touch the screen and slide one way or the other to move the home pages.
If you touch the square whitish pad at the right of the screen with a bunch of darker squares in it, it takes you to your apps - the programs that do what you want.
If you touch an app it runs. Touch the return arrow just to the right of the screen to close the app and go back. It always takes u back.
You have to "root" the machine to get the good apps. Usually with Dexters mod. This is easy. You download the file, rename it to upgrade.zip, place it on a micro SD card, and go to settings/About Device/System Updates/ then touch update device.
The home button at the right side of the screen always takes you to the center home page. - It DOES NOT close the app you have open at the moment.
you should get an app closer to close all of the un-closed apps for you.
Oh yea, android market place is the app you want to add all of the apps you want.
You get it with Dexters Mod (4.1 right now)
and there is tons more...............

Based on Linux ... now I understand why this is confusing to me. I've never worked with it before, but I understand from fellow users, they like it better than Windows OS.
I've never done any programming or web design, but maybe it's not too late to learn something new.
I thank both of you for your info and appreciate everything you have said.
mrpete2u I really appreciated the details of your instructions. I know I'm a dummy at this, and I'm sure there are more of you guys out there to help.
Thanks

mrpete2u said:
You have to "root" the machine to get the good apps. Usually with Dexters mod. This is easy. You download the file, rename it to upgrade.zip, place it on a micro SD card, and go to settings/About Device/System Updates/ then touch update device.
you should get an app closer to close all of the un-closed apps for you.
Oh yea, android market place is the app you want to add all of the apps you want.
You get it with Dexters Mod (4.1 right now)
and there is tons more...............
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Another newbie jumping in....and trying to figure this out. To "root" the machine do I need to update the firmware from the elocity site or can I jump to Dexters right away. If so, where do I find that?
Thanks for your advice.

your a7 is rooted already with dexters mod or elocity firmware.

My Kernel version is 2.6.32.9-svn2514
[email protected]#1
And Build # PBJ8000.2.0124
And ECv is 0.14
Would you mind explaining what these numbers mean, please?
Thank you

koalaw said:
My Kernel version is 2.6.32.9-svn2514
[email protected]#1
And Build # PBJ8000.2.0124
And ECv is 0.14
Would you mind explaining what these numbers mean, please?
Thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are one version in the rear, version now is 2.0133, most member her are running Dexter Mod 1.41 include myself an entirely different beast, stock Roman won't let me load Asphalt5 game so Dexter it is...A7 come from factor rooted Don't think any other tablet come out already root...

Your saying I need to upgrade one version
and that my A7 is already rooted??
Thank you for the answers.

koalaw said:
Your saying I need to upgrade one version
and that my A7 is already rooted??
Thank you for the answers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
look here for Dexter mod forget about the stock rom ....
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=890042

I have now updated to 2.0.0133
Now I need to figure out how to get the market icon so I can start looking for more apps & games. Tried downloading earlier and it keeps telling me that I have downloaded to my phone? I don't have a fancy phone to download to.
Here I am again confused, but what's new about that!!

There is a thread in the device section on adding market to stock rom.
Or you could just run elocitymod by Dexter.

I did run the elocity mod 1.41 and my firmware was updated to 2.0.0133
When I am on market.android's site, they want my phone number so they can download the app to my phone.
I'm trying to download the app to my tablet.
Am I confused or what
Thanks for answering me.

koalaw said:
I did run the elocity mod 1.41 and my firmware was updated to 2.0.0133
When I am on market.android's site, they want my phone number so they can download the app to my phone.
I'm trying to download the app to my tablet.
Am I confused or what
Thanks for answering me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, yes you are lol
For all intents and purposes (as far as Google is concerned at least) your tablet is a phone.
Install market enabler on the a7 and fake a cell provider. The a7 should show up on the Google market website after that.
You didn't install dextermod and then apply eLocity update over it did you? Just want to be sure.

Your laughing at me .... that's ok ... right now I'm so new at this, I really don't care, in fact I am laughing at myself for being so dumb.
I went to dexter's site and downloaded a file called elocitymod1.41 and renamed it to update.zip and that is what I installed.
OK I will install market enabler
Thank you again for helping this dummy .... LOL

From the perceived tone of the post prior to my last one, I thought you were already at the laughing stage. I thought I was just laughing along, sorry for the mix up.
Sounds like you are doing everything right. I just wanted to make sure that we were dealing with a clean install of elocitymod, and not something mixed together by trying to ally another update on top of it.

Needless to say ... I am still confused.
Installed the market enabler, but I am not getting anywhere.
Why I try to install an app I get a message telling me there is no phone attached to this account and they want me to log in with another account. When I try creating a new account, there is no place to give a phone number and I get all those stupid messages again.
Just wondering if I am too dumb, because you all make this seem so easy, that maybe I should give up and figure out other ways to get apps and leave the android market site alone???
Sorry if I have frustration in my voice, but I guess I thought this would be easier.

koalaw said:
Needless to say ... I am still confused.
Installed the market enabler, but I am not getting anywhere.
Why I try to install an app I get a message telling me there is no phone attached to this account and they want me to log in with another account. When I try creating a new account, there is no place to give a phone number and I get all those stupid messages again.
Just wondering if I am too dumb, because you all make this seem so easy, that maybe I should give up and figure out other ways to get apps and leave the android market site alone???
Sorry if I have frustration in my voice, but I guess I thought this would be easier.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why not just use market from the tablet? I wouldn't stress so much about trying to get it to work and remotely install from the web site.

Each time I go to the site, I am on my tablet. Mainly because it has a direct install button and not a download, so I want to be on the tablet to install on it.

koalaw said:
Each time I go to the site, I am on my tablet. Mainly because it has a direct install button and not a download, so I want to be on the tablet to install on it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So are you hitting the Market icon (opening the Market app) or are you trying to open http://market.android.com/ in the web browser?

[Q] MyLibrary question

First of all, let me say that I know there are alternatives to MyLibrary--I have several of them. But before I totally leave it behind, I want it to be for its shortcomings, not mine.
Secondly, I have MyLibrary behaving itself in terms of not crashing, and it's showing all my books on its one shelf. And I can create new shelves.
Which leads to the n00b question--how do I move books from the default unsorted shelf to a shelf I create? I've looked here and another forum, and in the full user manual--no joy. I'm sure it's something very easy, but I can't find it.

MmavisO said:
Which leads to the n00b question--how do I move books from the default unsorted shelf to a shelf I create? I've looked here and another forum, and in the full user manual--no joy. I'm sure it's something very easy, but I can't find it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I found this to be completely un-intuitive and had to ask someone. I just had to look up that answer again to answer your question because I couldn't remember how it was done and couldn't figure it out (again!).
Click on the icon along the top that looks like a pencil, to put the app into edit mode. On the left side you'll see a new '+' icon that lets you create a new bookshelf. Also while in edit mode you can drag books to the shelves on the left to categorize them.

That worked! Thank you! I'm glad I wasn't the only one who had to ask about this.

Backing up Shelves... Possiable solution

I found the database file that has all of the shelves information in them
/data/data/com.android.providers.media/databases/internal.db
You should be able to back that file up and restore it.
I'm not sure if the file changes when firmware is upgraded but i was able to ADB pull the file add 2 shelves and put books in each shelf and push the file back to the nook. after a reboot the new shelves appeared with the correct books in them.
Anyone want to experiment with changing firmwares and restoring... I don't have a microsd card with me.

persichini said:
I found the database file that has all of the shelves information in them
/data/data/com.android.providers.media/databases/internal.db
You should be able to back that file up and restore it.
I'm not sure if the file changes when firmware is upgraded but i was able to ADB pull the file add 2 shelves and put books in each shelf and push the file back to the nook. after a reboot the new shelves appeared with the correct books in them.
Anyone want to experiment with changing firmwares and restoring... I don't have a microsd card with me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was discussed before – use search.
In short:
Yes – you can back it up.
It’s easy to do autoshelving based on any field in database, like author.
Some people want to autoshelve by book genre – and optional metadata field.
There is an app for NC, but it’s not easy to port it on NST.

ApokrifX said:
It was discussed before – use search.
In short:
Yes – you can back it up.
It’s easy to do autoshelving based on any field in database, like author.
Some people want to autoshelve by book genre – and optional metadata field.
There is an app for NC, but it’s not easy to port it on NST.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess I didn't search correctly because I didn't find that information... Found a lot of people asking and complaining about losing their shelves... I have 43 shelves and just lost them. I have my shelves by book series. Yes i have a lot of book.
If I was any kind of app writer I'd look into the NC app but I'm not... So I'll just have to wait until one of the wonderful developers get board and take it on.

43 shelves? Wow!
It just amazes me how differently people use their Nooks.
I just have 4 or 5 books on my Nook at any one time.
As pointed out above, internal.db is your friend.
Backing it up is a good idea if you put in a lot of manual effort to set things up.
You might want to get sqlite3 on your desktop and learn what the tables are and how to selectively restore them.
That's what I'd do if I had 43 shelves.
Code:
sqlite3 internal.db
.table
.dump shelf
.dump shelf_item

persichini said:
I guess I didn't search correctly because I didn't find that information... Found a lot of people asking and complaining about losing their shelves... I have 43 shelves and just lost them. I have my shelves by book series. Yes i have a lot of book.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"book series" == "book genre"
It is not represented as a field in NST internal database.
If you have it as a field in content.opf of epub book, it’s possible to write an app to auto-shelve.
Won’t help with PDF books anyway.
If not – you can do it manually only.
To save your shelve you can use Renate solution.
Not exactly user-friendly, but better than nothing definitely.
Looking at B&N bugs fixing progress, I have strong feeling, shelves disappearance won’t be fixed anytime soon.

Yeah i know its a lot of books.. and a lot of shelves. I like to read fiction books that are multiples in a series... Left behind book 1-12, Hellgates: London 1-3, Harry Potter 1-7.. etc so I make a shelf for each series... Granted there are a lot I've never read there on the to-do list. Having a visual list of how much i need to read helps motivate me.
i don't delete the book because my father in law seems to think he knows everything so its nice to be able to say oh really i have that book right here let me go to the section so we can see what it really says...

persichini said:
Yeah i know its a lot of books.. and a lot of shelves. I like to read fiction books that are multiples in a series... Left behind book 1-12, Hellgates: London 1-3, Harry Potter 1-7.. etc so I make a shelf for each series... Granted there are a lot I've never read there on the to-do list. Having a visual list of how much i need to read helps motivate me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're doing "serious" reading and library management on the device, you might consider dumping the B&N software and using something better. I have become very fond of Mantano Reader ($5, IIRC). It does shelving very well, and handles PDFs just fine. I went for the $20/year cloud option that also syncs book positions among 4 devices, and it's working very well, as well as backing everything (book files and library options) up. I've completely replaced the B&N Library function on my device with Mantano's home screen.

firmware 1.2.1

I currently use 1.1.0 and wonder what features or benefits are there to updating to 1.2.1?

Much better Dictionary
The biggest benefit to the 1.2.1 upgrade is the greatly improved stock dictionary.

I haven't looked at the new dictionary that closely.
The old one was 50 odd Megs, the new one is too.
Do you mean that all the errors with PDF char entities and spacing were fixed?
The old one had 86196 root words, the new one has 86301.

dorfd1 said:
I currently use 1.1.0 and wonder what features or benefits are there to updating to 1.2.1?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Support for European WiFi channels (1-13)

Renate NST said:
I haven't looked at the new dictionary that closely.
The old one was 50 odd Megs, the new one is too.
Do you mean that all the errors with PDF char entities and spacing were fixed?
The old one had 86196 root words, the new one has 86301.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, the formatting was fixed and you can now search for a word, but only after calling the dictionary up by long pressing a word in the book you are reading. I have attached a photograph of the stock dictionary from 1.2.1.

'Sigh'...
I was hopping to see wireless channels from 10 to 13 in this update...
Guess my old theory of "if it isn't tottaly broken, then don't fix it" works, after all!

David0226 said:
Yes, the formatting was fixed...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then I have to make a new update to nookdict which will less invasively re-format the entries.
I see that they did clean up a lot of stuff, but there is still a bunch of gratuitous stuff.
I still prefer my Lookup app which gives you real browse and access to other dictionaries.

Renate NST said:
Then I have to make a new update to nookdict which will less invasively re-format the entries.
I see that they did clean up a lot of stuff, but there is still a bunch of gratuitous stuff.
I still prefer my Lookup app which gives you real browse and access to other dictionaries.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really like your lookup app also and in fact have it installed. But because I have many B&N books ("purchased" for free) that will not open in the modified Reader, I stay with the stock reader and then use your Lookup app when I need to use a dictionary like a dictionary instead of just looking up one word while reading. I would switch to using your Lookup app integrated into the Reader if I could figure out how to sign it so that it would open my B&N DRMed books. My other thought was to find a way to have both the absolutely stock and a modified stock reader installed at the same time so I could use the modified one with your Lookup app for non-DRM content and the absolutely stock reader for DRMed content. I don't think this is possible with out very significant work though.

1.2.1 supports WiFi channels 1-13
J_Palito said:
'Sigh'...
I was hopping to see wireless channels from 10 to 13 in this update...
Guess my old theory of "if it isn't tottaly broken, then don't fix it" works, after all!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
V1.2.1 does indeed support WiFi channels 1-13 by default.

That's great then!!!!
I've been searching arround but haven't found concise and agregated information on which changes/fixes/etc are in this 1.2.x.
Is there any post there, or can you please post the changes?
Thanks!

Use as an Organizer

How would this stand up as a simple organizer , lists , to do etc once rooted .
Tempted at £29 .
jje

Dunno. Find a good Android app that does organizing the way you want it, then see if it's compatible with Android 2.1. If it is, then chances are that NST will run it, and it'll be usable.
If you find any free software apps for this, do post them here - i'll try them out.

L_R_N said:
Dunno. Find a good Android app that does organizing the way you want it, then see if it's compatible with Android 2.1. If it is, then chances are that NST will run it, and it'll be usable.
If you find any free software apps for this, do post them here - i'll try them out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Find some apk's that you find suitable and I'll see if they work properly on NST.
Sometimes there are problems with menu items being totally white (B&N default theme).
From my experience it's faster to use a calendar app on a "dumbphone" than on NST.
Getting NST from the bag, unlocking it and running the desired apk takes a lot of time plus you cant handwrite on it.
If you want a good organizer with a good battery life (~ 13 h) I'd recomend Asus EEE Note ea800.
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/asus-eee-line/

once u root ur NST , u have full access to android market and u will find many organizer appz .... the main problem the suitable program will fit ur nook as ur nook E-Ink screen , find an program his theme suitable nook screen
good luck

speedman2202 said:
once uyou root uryour NST , uyou will have full access to android market and uyou will find many organizer appzs .... the main problem is that the suitable program willshould fit uryour nook as uryour nook has E-Ink screen ,. fFind an program hiswith theme suitable for nook screen
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OP does not HAVE a Nook yet. Thus OP must either rely on other people's advice, or use Android emulator to evaluate potential organizer apps, or just look at screenshots and read reviews and ask Nook owners to check that these applications work on Nook.

L_R_N said:
OP does not HAVE a Nook yet. Thus OP must either rely on other people's advice, or use Android emulator to evaluate potential organizer apps, or just look at screenshots and read reviews and ask Nook owners to check that these applications work on Nook.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have one for a couple of days now.
But as the screen format of grey scale is rather poor i can already see that apps like maps are not suitable and that this device is a lot more limited than i thought it was .
Still the price i paid was with the expectation if i broke it or it was little use i would have lost very little except time .
jje

L_R_N said:
OP does not HAVE a Nook yet. Thus OP must either rely on other people's advice, or use Android emulator to evaluate potential organizer apps, or just look at screenshots and read reviews and ask Nook owners to check that these applications work on Nook.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i am already have my own nook device ..... anything already run on it once u download from market .... the main problem just if the program fit and compatible with ur screen or not , that all...... so u just search on market ( suggest download market searcher APK and download and use on ur nook) and then download and install then test , i just use nook now for reading and sometimes log in my FB acc to check news and may be check out my subjects document

After much testing this Nook is not up to the job and development does not exist .
So it will be kept as a spare e-reader in the car .
jje

JJEgan said:
After much testing this Nook is not up to the job and development does not exist .
So it will be kept as a spare e-reader in the car .
jje
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you go into more detail? Was the issue that you couldn't handwrite, or that none of the apps were compatible, or were apps compatible but the screen was just too small or the contrast too low?
I'm thinking about picking up a cheap Nook also, but if it's really not that capable even after rooting I may try a Sony instead.

Goklen said:
Could you go into more detail? Was the issue that you couldn't handwrite, or that none of the apps were compatible, or were apps compatible but the screen was just too small or the contrast too low?
I'm thinking about picking up a cheap Nook also, but if it's really not that capable even after rooting I may try a Sony instead.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its ok but not top class as a reader probably worth £25.
Contrast and greyscale really not suitable for much anhd that to me is the development killer . No point having google maps if its just a splodge of grey mus with no detail .
Development and mods so far a dead end with many threads a year or more old .
Though someone is going to attempt a build i see today .
Also just noticed the developer PaulOBrian has one.
jje