I am also trying a new widget, Pure Messenger (currently US$1.99) that consolidates Twitter and Facebook feeds into a single stream-  exactly what I wanted.  It comes with 10 different widget sizes , although they can all be resized with Go Launcher.  That’s a big help for maximizing the usage of the screen size.  I’ll post an update in a few days once I’ve had more time using it.

The right side dock includes 3 vertically scrolling app lists. I have Facebook, Google+, Wallpaper changer, ES File Explorer, and Camera on this particular dock screen.

Along the top:
Weather Channel Widget
Beautiful Widgets (clock)
Widgetsoid (easy access to enable/disable wifi, bluetooth, airplane mode, and show battery level)

Second set of rows
Go Launcher Calendar, gmail, work email

Next row
Pure Messenger (single stream for Twitter and Facebook feeds)

Next to Pure Messenger are my Circle Launcher app folders (See this post for a close up CircleLauncher screen capture.)

The lower right include the Verizon data usage widget, Xmarks (cross platform [subscription] bookmark synchronizing app), Iris (Dexetra’s alpha Siri clone) and last but not least…the Xoom Music player.

I decided to install Go Launcher last night.  I spent about an hour rebuilding my home screen as it looks with Launcher Pro.  It wasn’t until I had almost finished rebuilding the screen that I realized I may have been able to recover my CircleLauncher folders from backup.  Oh, well…too late for that!

Go Launcher seems to be more stable- it refreshes quicker.  Orientation switching runs much more quickly.  It was very sluggish with Launcher Pro.  There is no equivalent to the Friends widget.  The Facebook widget is ugly and useless. I am using the Go Launcher Twitter widget.  It’s alright.

I went through a lot of trial error until I found the right application and the right settings.  I’ve discovered that Handbrake seems to work best. Once of the best reasons: it’s free!  I tell it explicitly to use 1200×800 resolution, use the AAC audio codec and have it save to an .m4v file.

On a completely side note, I found a series of really nice sunrise photos of Mt. Ranier linked from the Neatorama blog. I added several of these photos to the list of rotating images in Wallpaper Changer.

We recently had a Polycom installed in a conference room at work along with a large flat screen TV.  The first official use of the equipment took place today and it went smoothly.

Later in the day…

I was browsing through the Android Market this afternoon when I happened across the Polycom Video App.   I thought, “nah, this can’t be free and actually connect to the physical Polycom unit.”

I grabbed my Xoom and walked down the hallway, turned on the equipment, punched in the unit’s IP address and heard ringing.

The Polycom displayed an incoming call.  I grabbed the remote and accepted it.  I was stunned that it was all working.  My coworker took my Xoom down the hall to someone’s office and we had an impromptu video conference testing it out.

The test wasn’t under the best circumstances.  I wasn’t sure if I was still logged into the wireless network or if it was going out 4G and then coming back into the work network from the Internet.

The video was a little jerky.  The audio cut out a bit from time to time, but it worked fairly well.  I plan to test this out a little more thoroughly in the weeks to come.  We’ll probably use it next week to train the users on the teleconference equipment.

I do look forward to showing off my Xoom to the users I support!

I’m bringing this up for several reasons…

The Xoom and Android have been steadily luring me into its more open functionality.  I’ve enjoying doing things that the iPad will next do.  Some of these things include customize folder icons, rotating background images, purchasing music more easily from Amazon, installing a customized launcher interface, being able to install anything I want, being able to build my own apps, and the eventual desire to root the device.

I had heard about the Galaxy Nexus coming for a while, so I was already looking forward to hearing more about it.  The specs are really sexy: dual core 1.2ghz processor, 1 gigabyte of ram, 32 gigabytes of internal storage, and an AMOLED screen,

Some of the cooler aspects include a barometer and Near Field Communication. Now, I admit, I don’t really know what the barometer is going to mean, but there are some interesting speculations that include crowd-sourced weather.

Articles have begun to surface indicating that Verizon will soon be offering the Galaxy Nexus: eWeek Article. This is the excuse I’ve been wanting to leave AT&T. I admit that I may miss the ability to do simultaneous voice and data on the AT&T network, but I’ve already seen much better performance with Steven’s Verizon Android phone and the Xoom’s access to 3G and now 4G on the Verizon network.

Google has an announcement website up and running: Google Nexus Site.

Samsung also has an announcement sign-up site, which includes the ability to choose your preferred wireless carrier: Verizon Galaxy Nexus sign-up site.

So, here’s the tie in with the Xoom: There is already talk of the Xoom receiving Ice Cream Sandwich early!  Why? The Xoom is still considered to be the Android flagship tablet device.

Rumor has it that the Galaxy Nexus will be available around November 10th…guess we’ll see!

The Xoom is a lot faster now, including boot up time. I was pleasantly surprised.

The bad news.  Recovery was well, a bitch.   I decided to wipe it to factory defaults, before copying my data back onto it.  I then recreated my gmail account access on the Xoom and allowed it to recover data from Google.  I began thinking that this won’t be so bad.

I then copied the manual backup onto the Xoom and that took a while.

I soon realized that I would have to go to both the Amazon Market and the Android Market to donwload every App I had paid for.  Individually.

It got a little worse.   I had read on blog and soon confirmed that the stores will not retain a list of every free App you had installed.   Essentially, I may not have been able to remember every free App I grabbed.

Launcher Pro was able to read it’s backup, but the widgets had to be removed and recreated.  They show up as something like ‘Unable to load widget.’

CircleLauncher…I apparently had never made a backup of the data, so I had to manually recreate every CircleLauncher from scratch. That was a major pain.

Music.  Yes, I was able to copy all of my music back onto the Xoom, but guess what?  The backup doesn’t include the playlists I had created.

This was not a happy experience.  I have since discovered that the Astra file manager will let you create a backup of every App you have installed.  This should help next time.

However, I may have to go through this again, because I’ve been contemplating rooting my Xoom, but that means it has to be wiped to factory defaults again.  I’m not really looking forward to that prospect right now.

The downside…I have a meeting from 9:40-11:20  half way across campus!

I’ll be spending my lunch hour restoring and rebuilding my Xoom!

Now, let’s see what kind of turn around time we get!

12:52pm UPDATE

I just received an email stating that they have received my Xoom.  There’s a nice little website that ties to my RMA #.  It will show when they are processing the installation and indicate when it was shipped out.  It will also give me the tracking # when it’s shipped out.

It was only a little traumatic when I wiped it.  I know I have a good backup and Google is holding onto my App data.

I’ve seen information that it’s taking longer than the original turnaround time, but I think most people expected this.  There is a sudden rush of inbound Xooms.  It take a lot of time to receive it, unbox, replace the SIM card, repackage it, process the shipment, and still include delivery time.   I would be extremely surprised if I received it back before Monday, October 24th.

I got a late start backing up my Xoom on Sunday evening and was unable to ship it back today (Monday.)   The reason?  I ran into locked file issues that caused the manual backup to my desktop computer to fail.  I went through trial and error, until I came to the conclusion that power cycling the Xoom resolved the issue.  I made a manual backup earlier today to my laptop.

I’m somewhat conflicted about two things in regards to shipping the Xoom back to Verizon.  The directions – and I understand completely why- that you must either wipe the device to factory defaults or encrypt the tablet prior to shipping it back.  Once you encrypt the tablet, it remains encrypted and it requires you to enter the decryption pass code every time the tablet it restarted.   The only way to remove the encryption is to perform a factory default wipe.

I will most likely wipe the device, before I ship it back I would have eventually been forced to do this. This makes me somewhat nervous.   Google does automatically store your app data in their ‘cloud.’  When you log into your gmail account for the first time after a wipe, the device is supposed to download all of your apps and app data.    I’ve seen that there are issues with free apps reestablishing themselves, but I know that they will be displayed on my Google account and can easily be downloaded again.  I should also be able to copy their app data files back onto the Xoom from my manual backup.

It’s easy to say all of these things, but I must still pull the trigger this evening!  If anything…it should make for an interesting post when they ship my Xoom back to me.