Database Info

S/W Newbie. If you have a moment

Hello
In the begining there was the XDA, and then the XDAII, and now, in the post to me as we speak (I hope) is the XDAIIs.
Ive spent the past hour surfing around this site, and been quite amazed at some of the things you guys and gals can make these devices do. A recent change in company has moved me from my beloved hardware engineering onto software, nothing spectacular at the moment, editing .ini, .bat, .exe and a few other types of files. It has however got me interested in playing with my phone, but the problem is I don't know where to start, I see programs called mkrom which need to run on a unix like system (which I don't have) and RomKitchen ?
Are there any recomendations on a place to start ? whether its online tutorial or a good book you have bought from somewhere, and I mean books that start from the very bottom of the pile. Again, I know bits and pieces but nothing substantial in this area.
At the moment its more the applications for the today screen I`m interested in.
Any info will be much appreciated
All the best
Nikki

Welcome aboard Nikki. You can start here:
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/wiki/FAQ
and move on from there. The forum has tons of info on what apps run best on our beloved XDA. Cheers.

mate, regarding "At the moment its more the applications for the today screen I`m interested in. Any info will be much appreciated"
there are loads of apps you can put on the today screen such as:
1) animated today - animation on your today screen
2) today launch apps - allows you to put icons / shortcuts to your favorite applications
3) weather
4) phone profiles
5) system information showing you amount of memory used, battery remaining, program terminator or switcher
6) nothing on your today screen...just the background pic/theme
7) world time which displays around 6 times zones
8) quotes
9) games on the today screen (e.g. baseball...but if you ask me i'd go for footy)
10) note screen for scribbling
11) let's see....oh you can also put a different kind of clock or date format
12) calendar or task summary
13) and a whole bunch of others...
no need to buy anything really; just hop on over to the 02 and xda websites...not to mention this forum as your means of gaining tons of info.
you can try these links:
http://www.freewareppc.com/
http://ipaqsoft.net/
http://www.pdagold.com/themes/
hope that helps. cheers then

the faq does not satisfy my needs!!!
dear bravo2zero the faq available does not explain everything
it only covers 2 old pdas what about the blue angel & what are the diffrence in the
Rom version
radio version
Protocol version
ExtRom version
Where can we find the tools to edit it ?? & what each tool can do ??
if i'm reading a post i have to open 6 or 7 windows at a time & follow links to many diffrent sites...
Where can we find all in 1 tidy place ??!!!
Thanks

Thats the beauty of it. There is no one single place since this forum evolves out of everyone's contribution. This isn't like a commercial website that offers downloads in a nice structured way. Like everyone else, you just have to read through a lot of posts to get to where you want to be.

NAND and NOR ROM on the Kaiser

So with all the excitement going on in the page pool thread I was doing some external reading. One topic that caught my interest is NAND and NOR ROM.
I got a nice summary from here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/08/19/453784.aspx
Basically, the synopsis is:
NOR: Faster to read, slower to write.
NAND: Slower to read, faster to write.
But, more importantly, NOR ROM let's you perform XIP operations. Now i remember seeing this XIP acronym before...in a directory when I extracted a ROM. This leads me to believe that at least part of the ROM in the Kaiser is NOR ROM.
XIP means eXecute In Place. It basically allows code to be executed directly from the ROM without first being copied into the RAM. This means less RAM utilization. As the article states i works for programs only, not user data files.
If we look in the XIP directory of an extracted ROM we see subdirectories like:
busenum.dll
diskcache.dll
imgfs.dll
These are things like low level bus, disk, and file system drivers. These things make perfect sense to XIP.
My question then is... if indeed we do have NOR ROM that can do XIP operations, how much is free on a typical ROM? AND can we cook in other applications into this XIP NOR location instead of into the NAND ROM and thus have those eXecute in Place and free up additional RAM?
It would be nice to get the 3% of my RAM back from Voice Command, or the 1% from PocketCM, etc, etc...
Could it be as easy as moving .dll files from \SYS to \ROM\XIP before cooking the ROM? I doubt it, but is it possible?
I'm just throwing a concept out there and asking about it's feasability. I'm not really a developer so I don't know how much further I can take this.
Thoughts?

bengalih said:
My question then is... if indeed we do have NOR ROM that can do XIP operations, how much is free on a typical ROM? AND can we cook in other applications into this XIP NOR location instead of into the NAND ROM and thus have those eXecute in Place and free up additional RAM?
It would be nice to get the 3% of my RAM back from Voice Command, or the 1% from PocketCM, etc, etc...
Could it be as easy as moving .dll files from \SYS to \ROM\XIP before cooking the ROM? I doubt it, but is it possible?
I'm just throwing a concept out there and asking about it's feasability. I'm not really a developer so I don't know how much further I can take this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think that blog applies to the Kaiser-like devices anymore. We already use all the ROM space we get. The partitioning between XIP and storage is out of the same space and controlled by how the ROM image is built and whatever they set the pagepool to.
Did you run out of space of the 100MB+ internal storage we all get?

I don't know why it wouldn't apply...it's not a WM5 vs WM6 issue.
Based on the only specs I have seen it lists the Kaiser with 256 ROM and 128 RAM.
The question is what type of ROM is it? Devices can mix NOR and NAND ROM. And based on what I see on the extracted ROM, at least some of it must be NOR (because of the existence of the XIP directories).
And this isn't a question of storage space. I am not trying to get more usable storage...I have a 8GB SDHC card for that. I am trying to maximize my available application space.
The point of my post is... can an application, let's say like Voice Command be moved from what might be the NAND portion of the ROM into the NOR portion of the RAM (from \SYS to \ROM\XIP). It would take up the same space of the TOTAL ROM, but when it executed it DOES NOT NEED BE LOADED INTO RAM and thus your available application space is not decreased.
Again, I am not a developer, so I may be way off in asking if this can be done. However your response is one that doesn't speak to the theory I am proposing.

if I remember right this was talked about before but on a different device I think the hermes. I am not sure of the reason it couldnt be done but I just remember it couldnt lol. Something about allocated memory maps

Some interesting things
I found this wile reading the link you posted. Some great information in there.
By the way, every SD and CF card is made out of NAND flash. So, no, you can't XIP programs stored on a storage card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So am I reading this right. That any program we have stored on our Storage Card won't utilize the XIP

I've been working on & subsequently screwing up, page pool alteraitions for awhile. Because I'm messing with a Kaiser(CE5) & a UMPC (CE6) based device, I can tell you that while the pagepool will save you some seconds, mostly with the loading of contacts, your inbox, & the boot to os speed of the device, for the most part you're right, you won't see much difference.
However, with CE6, that will change. With CE 6 based devices you will be able to completely comtrol paging, be it XIP or Data (Read Only) paging. Maybe wm7 will introduce CE6 to PDA devices. With CE6, formerly & frequently confused with WM6, you will have 2 page pools & several controls over them including compaction.
The effectiveness of page pool sizes can vary widely depending on the types of processes & programs you use, but suffice to say, the average user will take little to no benefit from a larger paging file.
For all of you truly interested, there is a PB process file called DevHealth.exe, that can be used via SD card to report the actual status of the paging pool. Google it, you will find it. Kind of interesting to see what your device is actually doing before & after the changes.

AllTheWay said:
I found this wile reading the link you posted. Some great information in there.
So am I reading this right. That any program we have stored on our Storage Card won't utilize the XIP
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No but what the OP is asking is if we can take apps and put them in the XIP section and run them from there. I think someone should try it out just cook up a rom with a complete app cooked in the XIP and see what happens. the worst is bad blocks i would guess but maybe POF or OLI should chime in on this one.

I do believe you can XIP from an SD card, I believe MS has done this with a few test devices that utilize under battery sd cards. I think it's not something they've done mostly because of problems in system stability when the SD is removed.

austinsnyc said:
No but what the OP is asking is if we can take apps and put them in the XIP section and run them from there. I think someone should try it out just cook up a rom with a complete app cooked in the XIP and see what happens. the worst is bad blocks i would guess but maybe POF or OLI should chime in on this one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
THANK YOU AUSTIN!
Yes, this is what I am saying. Forget about SD cards (which, according to what I have read are all NAND and thus can't XIP).
I am just asking if some of the applications that we are cooking into the flash (the things that extract to \SYS) like MS Voice Command, CM Contacts, QuickGPS, etc... if instead those things can be places in XIP.
Again, this is under the assumption (which is a big assumption) that what is in \XIP gets placed in the NOR ROM and what is in \SYS gets placed in the NAND.
What this would mean is that when you execute any of the programs I mention, like say Quick GPS you won't see the RAM utilization on your device go up, meaning you will have the same amount of available free memory. This is because of the XIP (based on the description I have read) it can be executed from the ROM without being copied into RAM.
Now, my guess is that even though the NOR has faster reads than NAND, it still might be slower than RAM. So, it might take another second to open Quick GPS. However for some apps I think I would prefer the slight delay in order for my available memory to be increased.

GSLEON3 said:
I've been working on & subsequently screwing up, page pool alteraitions for awhile. Because I'm messing with a Kaiser(CE5) & a UMPC (CE6) based device, I can tell you that while the pagepool will save you some seconds, mostly with the loading of contacts, your inbox, & the boot to os speed of the device, for the most part you're right, you won't see much difference....
For all of you truly interested, there is a PB process file called DevHealth.exe, that can be used via SD card to report the actual status of the paging pool. Google it, you will find it. Kind of interesting to see what your device is actually doing before & after the changes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good info Leon...but better to put this in the pagepool thread so we can discuss it there (and please do). What I'm trying to get at here is not directly related to pagepool sizes and speeds.

austinsnyc said:
if I remember right this was talked about before but on a different device I think the hermes. I am not sure of the reason it couldnt be done but I just remember it couldnt lol. Something about allocated memory maps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's entirely possible. Again, I'm being the "idea guy" as I'm trying to synthesize some info I have absorbed. The most programming I do is high level scripting and VB so I don't know details about how this stuff would actually work down at the memory map level. There may be some other issues as well. I was hoping there was someone in these forums who actually had the knowledge (and wasn't just following cooking tutorials like most of us) of how this stuff truly interacts.

Also please reference my post in the pagepool thread, has some good thoughts (I think!):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2101324&postcount=99

bengalih said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2101324&postcount=99
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In addition to the above, I have found some more info which may partially defeat my reasoning:
XIPKernel
There are portions of the deepest parts of the OS that have to XIP. If you're on NOR, that code just XIPs like everything else. Not so on NAND. For a NAND system to boot, it needs to load this code into RAM first and then run it from there. When the system is running, it can't really tell if it's running from RAM or ROM, so it assumes it's running from ROM and doesn't count this space.
The XIPKernel region tends to be between 1.5 and 2M.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So it seems that just because we have a \XIP directory doesn't mean we have NOR ROM. It could just be the area the ROM places data that in NEEDS to XIP, and therefore means that it will get copied to RAM on boot (instead of just XIPing from where it is in ROM). This could also account for the additional "missing" RAM up to 128MB.
Therefore moving an application to this \XIP pre-cook doesn't mean that it will save us any RAM (again, assuming we DON'T have NOR ROM). It could however speed up that application since we are basically "pre-loading" it into RAM instead of waiting for the load to be user initiated.
I guess a question now is does all XIPed code run at the same time and is that all at boot? It does us no good to try and load up voice command (or QuickGPS, etc.) before the supporting code from the OS has loaded.
So, this may all be a wash, but it does help explain some of the interaction better and even if it leads no where, at least we will better understand how the devices memory system works.

Where to install Software?? SC or Main Mem!!!

Where to install Pocket PC software?
cant take credit, Source: http://www.ppcsg.com/
I think this could be a sticky, or maybe not! Just good info! As the biggest issue I see here, especially for VZW guys, such as myself, PPC Speed!
Where to install Pocket PC software?
Almost every application works best if installed in the MAIN MEMORY, we need to exercise proper memory/space management so as to keep our PPCs in optimal condition. This is because the more applications you install directly into the PPC's MAIN MEMORY = the more physical memory space it uses to store those application data = the less free program memory it has = the SLOWER your PPC becomes blink.gif.
1) INSTALL IN STORAGE CARD:
i) What should come here:
a. Ideal to dump all those non-important applications here like games as well as information applications, etc, that:
- do not require fast loading.
- do not monitor system resources (e.g. battery life, available memory, etc).
- do not consume a lot of system resources.
ii) Examples:
a. Most PPC games.
b. Dictionaries.
c. Language Translation softwares.
d. Educational softwares.
e, Mapping/GPS softwares.
f. Sprite Backup (storing it here has additional advantages).
g. MobiPocket Pro.
iii) Advantages:
a. The number of applications that can be put here is limited ONLY by the size of your SD Card, i.e. most stuff can and should go here.
b. Saves a lot of space in MAIN MEMORY, especially if you have large applications (i.e. over 10MB).
iv) Disadvantages:
a. Programs stored here run slowest (i.e. take a long time to load, especially for Today Plug-ins).
b. Icons in Program Menu load slower (i.e. take a longer time to appear).
c. Icons placed in the Start Menu will appear as squares (this is because the PPC system cannot find the images of the icons in time).
2) INSTALL INTO STORAGE:
i) What should come here:
a. Stuff that you initially wanted install into MAIN MEMORY for faster loading of Today Plug-ins but fret wasting precious space in there. Like they say, "when no fish, prawn also good", so STORAGE is the next best option.
b. You want your icons to appear beautifully as their original states instead of squares in the Start Menu.
ii) Examples:
a. Today Plug-ins such as SBSH's CalenderPlus Today, SBSH's Pocket Weather, etc.
b. System applications which do not require speed such as XP Shutdown, OmegaOne’s 1-Pass, etc.
iii) Advantages:
a. Programs stored here will not be wiped out after a hard-reset, but note that:
- You have to manually access them from a file explorer.
- Some of them might not work because of missing .dll files and registry values.
b. Make FULL USE of other means of space given to us.
c. Icons (from the programs installed in STORAGE) can appear in their original states in the Start Menu.
iv) Disadvantages:
a. Some PPCs have very little space in their STORAGE (e.g. O2 Mini only has about 7MB).
b. A handful of programs will not work if placed here.
3) INSTALL INTO MAIN MEMORY:
i) What should come here:
a. Most suitable for comprehensive system monitoring programs, multi-functional Today Plug-ins etc.
b. Known programs that can work only in MAIN MEMORY (e.g. Microsoft Reader, Carlsoft Ruler, etc).
ii) Examples:
a. SPB Pocket Plus
b. SPB GPRS Monitor
c. OmegaOne Battery Pack Pro
d. Symantec Antivirus for Handhelds
e. ScaryBear Check Notifications and Notify Clear Fix
f. Resco Explorer 2005.
iii) Advantages:
a. Fastest loading of all the options.
b. Softwares installed here are most stable.
iv) Disadvantages:
a. Limited space in MAIN MEMORY.
b. Worse of all, the more applications you install here = the slower your system response.
c. Therefore, you'll have to choose carefully what you put there.

i thought it's a question -_-'
but good luck anyway ^^v

Time to stand together !!!

I am one of the unlucky who've bought a new phone, unaware that android 4.xx contained even major changes compaired to the earlier versions. My phone is a HTC DESIRE 816, bought only because of the 8 gb internal memory and the promise that the phone supported additional 128 GB of memory
This has resulted in many of my programs no longer work because Android now blocks the direct access to the SD card and to the system.
What I find reprehensible is that these phones are sold without the producers inform us about this limitation, and I actually find that we have taking a step backwards concerning user freedom.
Furtermore HTC expresses thet they are 'excited to see what you are capable of. HTC eagerly anticipates your innovations'and also containes a complet guide to how to root your phone.
This, I find is hypocritical as they at the same time refuses to give us S-Off or to edit the platform.xml giving us access to our self paid SD CARD, and at the same time in their AD's makes a big deal about the fact, that we can add 128 GB of additional memory, but doesn't mention that we have no say over it.
A few Of my paid programs that doesn't work anymore:
Navigon, because of the amount of data it require you to DL.
My expensive Firewall / Antitheft.
My GPS tracking App
Nandroid,
Callrecorder
several of my paid Backup programs
many Jrummy App
etc etc.
We have to stand together an demand that the prducers find a solution, and we have to face up to Google, their excuse that it has to do with security don't hold water in court, they must have had other choices, but they chose the easiest and the one which made most trouble for their users.
Maybe instead they could have chosen to have apps that needed the R/W to apply for a signed certificate to get access to this and as the experts Google is to gather information, it wouldn't have been hard to monitor those apps who was awarded with the certificat to control if thet was abusing this.
This is just one solution, but I'm no expert, but guaranteed, there must have been lots of ways to solve and to achieve their goal.
Regards Sc0rpio

How much storage will a Full stack web development learner need?

My laptop is dell inspiron core i5 5567, 8GB RAM and 1TB Hard disk.
Background:
If I'd enough money, I'd just go and buy a new laptop. But that's the problem, I don't have it. I've seen my friends doing very perfect for be it web development or app development in 128GB SSD and 512GB Hard disk(even now, few months ago, to be precise).
I'm planning to learn web development, make personal projects(I Don't need to host them to public professionally, heroku will do the job. And backups of codes can be stored in github once the project is completed) so that I can apply for jobs. The jobs that I'm applying are the same that university graduate in USA does. (Only difference is that they treat you like sit and pay sit )
I currently have a 1 TB hard drive. I still have 650-700 GB of space left on hard drive. Problem is that I've used it for more than 10000 hrs and the disk health isn't looking great either according to crystaldiskinfo and crystaldiskmark(Although crystaldiskinfo said "GOOD" health). (These problems are being faced since long time but I didn't code for more than 2-3 weeks so I didn't care that much at that time)I faced problems like even VS code used to hang, 100% disk usage would make me suffer(in a fresh installed OS, this'd happen even while not coding, it'll randomly happen like that. But not forever. If I restarted, then it'd be gone. But again after some time, it'd come. I'd tried everything given on the internet and forums about it and it wasn't fixed permanently->the only conclusion that I found is "Get a SSD".), Pycharm repeatedly kept crashing(no matter how many times I re-installed and re-setted up) and a general perception that I built was "Applications are getting optimized for speed of SSDs, and everyone must have a SSD for their C drive". I ignored it at first, because I felt like why should I get it? My laptop is dell inspiron core i5 5567. The SSD that I can put here will have speed of 62.5MB/sec. And even my current hard disk has similar speed.
I'm getting more speed in my 5yo hard disk than that'd come from my new SSD. LOL. (It's done on Ubuntu on small sample though). BTW which company's SSD is great? Is TOSHIBA's SSDs good? Do tell about that as well.
View attachment 261142
I can share the link to all the details of the problem I was having, and various other details which will only make this post unread-ably long if I post it here, if you allow me to share. It is in superuser website.
HENCE, I'm switching to hybrid storage with SSD and Hard disk.
Every penny counts to me and I don't want any underutilizations as well as risking not enough SSD space. (Storings data like music, images, videos isn't a problem in this case, because I've very less of them).
I can get a new laptop once I get a job with 1 year of salary.
Requirements:
Here's my software requirements. The storage are just my guesses, your insights would be valuable here.
1) Windows 10/11.
2) Microsoft Office Professional containing word,doc, ppt, excel.
3) Brave browser (Not considering downloads for browser. Downloads can go to hard disk)
4) Chrome browser
5) Firefox browser
6) images2pdf softwares
7) IDE(probably VScode or pycharm whatever supports web development and is easy to use for beginners)
8) Web development installations (for 1 stack like MERN, MEAN etc)
9) Viber/Telegram Downloads (Can be removed regularly on unwanted basis)
10) Save codes and notes on Joplin while learning. Notes will contain images+codes+text.
11) Note taking app on Joplin
Windows 11 would need 64GB, I don't think my laptop would support windows 11 so at max my windows 10 can go upto 64GB
MS-Office could take 4GB.
While most browsers take 100MB for installing but for storing cache, bookmarks etc I'm not sure how much would they be taking!
images2pdf type software would take 500MB. (I use online tools mostly but sometimes for special files and situations, I use this desktop application).
I'll need Joplin for note taking. It'd take 500MB+(size of Notes pdf). If I can install it in Hard disk, No issues at all. Can I? Is it possible? I'm going t use caddy and use both Hard disk and SSD at one laptop internally. I'll do the same for Viber and Telegram so that the downloads stay at Hard disk as they're not very important and in very less quantity as I don't have tons of people out there in Viber and Telegram.
I've Never done any web development so I'm not sure how much space learning any of those stack would take. Like space taken by django, a SQLserver etc. I'm not talking about exe file size but the size taken by them after installation.
My files storage requirements (of current,for storing datas like videos, audios, pictures,pdfs etc):
1) Important docs 34.7MB
2) Study materials that needs to be saved forever 41.5 GB ( I can instead just index the name of the book and download it later as they're all downloaded from online. More than 90% storage can be freed up from 41.5GB)
3) Very important courses downloads 103.16 GB.
4) Unimportant courses 206.1 GB (I downloaded them online, It's very less likely that I'm going to use them. They're not very important. But I could need them if a course is really good or if the topic is really tough and I need multiple insights)
So, I need around 110 GB of files and multimedia storage. I really don't want to waste SSD space by storing them so I'm instead planning to get 128GB pen drive for it. It's because I won't use this course heavily but they are useful. But I'm hearing things that pen drives are sit. Losing pendrives isn't the problem for me but it could instead be quality and durability. Original pen drives aren't generally sold here so loosing data could be a big risk with that.
For those unimportnat 2016.1 GB of course, I'd just keep them where they're currently at-1TB Hard disk.
HELP Question:
In my region, If 1 TB hard drive costs x, then 128GB pen drive costs 0.307x and 256GB SSD 0.538x and 512GB SSD costs 1.153x. I'm not mentioning budget because I'm not buying from amazon or any American/International sites.
Can you share your ideas about what should I do?
As I said above, this is My view:
1) Get 128GB pen drive to store 103.16GB of "Very Important Courses"
2) Buy 256GB SSD. 64GB for OS(Windows 10 as I don't think windows 11 will work in my laptop) and 192GB for files.
Is there better approach to this?
Remind me of things that I'm not noticing atm.
Extra:
While I've said this for web development, I really would love information about android/IOS app development setup required (storage only).

It usually depends on the work of full stack developer that how, much space he needs such as if you are working in gaming industry you needs more than 1TB because you have to run heavy game engines as well with coding so if you want to learn deeply about laptop for full stack developer, it will help you to understand your needs more deeply.