One thing about the Nexus One I’ve been using…it’s kept my attention for a fairly long time! (I’m the kind who quickly gets bored with toys, I think the iPhone only kept my attention for a few months.) This is probably because of the ease with which it is customisable (launchers, keyboards, browsers, etc.) But one thing that’s been nagging me about it is the lack of internal storage. I’d get the “phone is low on storage” message every time I wanted to try a new app. Even with the ability to move apps to an SD card, I was running out of space.

To overcome this, I decided to try the CyanogenMod OS on my Nexus One. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy the whole process was, even though instructions could be clearer. This had the effect if wiping my phone clean (I lost some apps that I rarely used, but I’d never have deleted them unless I was forced to do this). The phone seemed much snappier and I had the option of moving all apps to the SD card. Happiness! 

But my preferred launcher is Go Launcher EX (for it’s ability to create folders in the app drawer and the great widgets it has), and Cyanogen comes with ADW as the default launcher. But when I installed Go Launcher Ex, the phone because almost unusable in so many ways:

 1) Swype didn’t work properly in several apps

 2) The unlock screen (I use patterns) often appeared blank

 3) Scrolling in e-mails and apps would hang, requiring the phone to turned off and on.

4) The phone was generally slowness and unresponsiveness. 

I just went back to AWD and thankfully it seems to work ok, so I think it’s just that Go Launcher EX isn’t optimised for CyanogenMod 7. But I’ll try Launcher Pro or one of the others in the coming weeks. At least it’ll have the effect of keeping me occupied with my phone! 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had at least 2 email addresses. When I first came online in what was perhaps late 1996 or early 1997 using India’s first ISP, VNSL, Internet access was over a Shell account. This provided a text based interface (who even remembers this?) that provided access email using Pine, Gopher, NewsGroups, and few other services. Text based access to certain websites was available as well (Cricinfo and Yahoo! Were some of the first websites I visited.) Our whole family was given one, horribly long, email address that was something@giasbg01.vsnl.net.in. Only about a year later, when internet access over TCP/IP became an option and I was able to download a web-browser did I get my first hotmail account (which I still have!).

Through the years I’ve used email services from Lycos, USA.net, Yahoo!, Hotmail, Indiatimes, Gmail, Facebook and various private institutions that I studied or worked at. And I’ve always been very careful about separating personal conversations from Social Networking, marketing, newsletters, retailers, and other general junk that you need to provide an email address for. Gmail’s amazing spam filters and insane storage limits made trying to do this a little less relevant, but I persevered. At this point in time, I have a “personal” email address that I use to communicate with friends and family, a “junk” email address that I use to sign up at websites and on marketing material, a “social networking” email address that I provide on Facebook, Twitter, etc. and a “professional” email address for when I was corresponding with companies while looking for work. A bit much? Maybe, but Gmail also made it possible to actually manage all these accounts through a single Google account which is what I did.

The reason I do this is to separate my communications and identities based on the audience. However, in the last 12 months this has become harder and harder, and has reached a tipping point with the introduction of Google+. As an FYI, it is my “personal” email account that I use for Google+. My communications are in so many places now, including Facebook, Goolgle+, Twitter, and email, I wonder if it makes sense to separate and compartmentalise anymore? I’m still committed to keeping a separate “junk” email address, but does anyone have thoughts on keeping a separate email address for use on the social networks?