HTC Hero CM9 (ICS) with ad-hoc support

Hello, folks.

I've just flashed a CyanogenMod 9 (Ice Cream Sandwitch) onto my HTC Hero and it's pretty cool but it doesn't connect to an ad-hoc wifi spot. There is a good old flashable piece of software somewhere in xda-developers forums but you just can't flash it using the current ClockworkMod Recovery (using any 3+ CWM recovery version, actually). It says something like:

Amend scripting (update-script) is no longer supported. Amend scripting is deprecated by Google in Android 1.5. It was necessary to remove it when upgrading to the ClockworkMod 3.0 Gingerbread based recovery.Please switch to Edify scripting (updater-script and update-binary) to create working update zip packages. Installation aborted.

That means you need CWM recovery 2.x to flash the ad-hoc support hack.

The easiest solution is to install the Rom Manager from the market and flash the recovery from it. It'll flash 2.x.x CWM Recovery onto your HTC Hero (I assume it flashes the last version CWM guys support for our dinosaurous devices). Now you can reboot into the recovery mode and flash the ad-hoc support piece. After that you are safe to flash cwm recovery 5.x again.

Now you have an ICS CM9 device able to connect to ad-hoc networks.


Cheers,
Zoreg

Force conky to use full screen width

Hello, dear anonymous lurkers.

Todays tip is about how to force conky (we're talking about single line conky setups) to use all available screen width without a gap at the end (without any gaps, actually). Also i'll show you how to make your conky not overlapable by other windows and how to make it available to click through its window.

Ok, first things first.

Open your conkyrc and make the following changes:
own_window yes
own_window_type panel

This makes your conky act like a panel: maximized windows won't overlap it, it won't be shown in pager or taskbar, you can click through it.
A quick-tip: if you supply own_window_hints above - that'll be a direct shot in the leg: conky window will be able to gain focus and you won't be able to click through it. I suggest you follow the official documentation and not set own_window_hints if you don't know what you are doing.
According to the official documentation, in this mode conky retains all available screen width at the edge specified by the alignment setting. However, there is a gap at the end. And it is there no matter what you do. You set minimum_width but it is still there. You pray - nothing. You cry.

That stupid gap is there because conky is drawn at position -5,-5. I don't know why, honestly. But if you connect one more display to your pc to the left of the primary - you will see that.

The most basic solution is to start conky with -x 5 option:
conky -x 5
or just set gap_x in your conkyrc to 5:
gap_x 5

Actually, i can't really say if '5' will suit your needs. Use xwininfo to get the proper value.

Advanced KDE users could benefit the whole kwin 'special window parameters' power to make conky act whatever they want it to.


Cheers,
Serge.