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By Raj, April 28, 2010 12:45 am

Well, after lots of research to make sure I understood what I was getting into, making sure I had enough lingo to ask a good question should I run into trouble and most importantly clearing up time in my schedule to do so, I finally took the plunge and rooted my Telus (130) Hero. Why? Well the 2.1 update to Android had been promised by HTC and by extension Telus since I got the phone at New Years and to date, there is nothing official. What’s worse, the dates for the HTC “unbranded” release keep getting pushed back and that means that the branded releases are certainly not on any fast lane out of the compiler.

So what did it take for me to get root and start seeing what Android is about today rather than when it first came out? Well, Telus uses a very up to date firmware build for 1.5. This means that many of the easier (read – less step intensive) processes are not possible. So that means if you want to root this phone, you need to create a gold card. Now before I go any further, I’ll say what every other guide out there says… do this at your own risk… you could brick your phone and I am not going to be able to do anything for you other than say “it worked for me”.

So what’s a gold card? Well, it’s a card that has had part of its file system modified slightly. The process is rather simple and of everything, outside of setting up Apps2SD (which I’m doing tonight before bed), is what takes the most time. it is also the step where you might have to lay out money. I wanted to get a faster card and so I managed a deal on a 4GB Kingston Class4 and I used this guide and created my gold card on my second attempt. What went wrong on the first try? Well, I didn’t read the instructions – I chose the wrong disk to change – Choose Physical Disks! You’ll notice that the guide is one that tells you how to root the same phone, so why am I spending electrons on typing more out? Well, the guide is good, but only as a high level guide, other than the gold card process, it felt weak to me. It also suggest updating the radio, but I didn’t and it work fine. This process could take 20 minutes depending how long it takes for the gold card server to email your disk image back to you.

After the gold card, you have to downgrade the firmware – don’t worry, the 405 version that is suggested works just fine if you chicken out at this point or want to go back to some thing “official”. This took some fiddling for me as I needed to get a virtual machine that would actually let the sync app see my phone. It seems that XP is your best be here. Install the RUU exe and wait out the 5-10 minutes that it takes. The guys at The Unlockr have written up the guides that will take us the rest off the way – and this stage is outlined here. There is also a decent gold card method here, but you can choose the one that you want.

After you’ve downgraded, you have to install a new recovery image. Not hard – follow along – but if you are like me, you’ll have tried to see what the stock recover is and been met with a caution sign on boot. Don’t worry – I think the carriers are trying to keep their phones “protected”. Be sure you adjust your input to reflect the file names/numbers that you are planning to use. You’ll spend about 2 minutes on this stage and after this you can flash the ROM of your choice – I’m a fan of Villain 5.4. Oh yeah, if you are running an unlocked phone, it’s still unlocked.

Once all this is done – maybe an hour later – you’ll have the bigger job of putting together all your screens and logging into all your services, but that should be just as much fun. Mybackup Pro was a wonder agent to allow me to get most of my data back and FYI – reboot the phone a couple times and make sure Google has done its syncing before you pass judgment on the ROM.

I’m certainly happy I went through with this – I was scared at the outset, but I so dearly wanted to be free of Telus that you can not image how it was hurting to be bound to them again even for this little thing. Can I live with a few extra bug and hiccups that were not there before I started – sure, because the trade off is that so much more of what the system is capable off is open to me and in the end, it’s Android – there are at least two ways around every bug, more if you start looking at them as features or challenges.

EAVB_GCMKNBHOHU

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By Raj, February 2, 2010 9:01 pm

Well, after a couple of false starts, I am finally able to post from the app. It is very much like the Blackberry app that I grew quite fond of, but with a few unique hiccups. First, when you are setting up the blogs, you need to have a solid connection as the app tends to time out quickly. Second, the first time you go into a blog you’ve just added, it will take a while loading comments and then you can move to posts that will take some time to load as well. After that, it’s pretty slick.

I finite interesting to watch WordPress make sure it has a mobile presence in this increasingly microblogged world. I’d write more, but my battery is dying.

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By Raj, January 4, 2010 9:40 pm

Running 1.5, and not knowing when/if/how I’ll be getting 2.X via Telus and needing to have a phone that can do what a ‘berry does has taken some digging and I think I’ve almost got it. Here’s what it took to get my ‘droid to about the same place as my ‘berry – and further in some places.

• Baby Puzzle (Better)
• Google Sky Map (Better)
• ShopSavvy (Better)
• chompSMS (Better)
• eBuddy (Equal – increasing the number of IM services)
• Car Mode (Equal – speakerphone)
• WeatherEye (Equal – there are loads of weather apps already, but this gives some important details like sunrise, sunset and weather alerts)
• SmsFixTimes (Equal – Androids on Rogers have a time stamp issue)
• Ringdroid (Better)
• AK Notepad (Equal)
• Layar (Better – AR app)
• Bloo (Equal – almost… better than the official Facebook app as it provides notifications that the official one doesn’t)
• AttachEmail (Equal – lets me attach any file to GMail or any other “sending app”)
• Toddler Lock (Better – interactive lock for Bug)
• ShakeIt (Better – activates speakerphone on shake)
• Share Ringtone (Better – lets me send ringtones)
• Seesmic (Equal)
• FlyScreen (Better)
• List Master (Better)
• Shazam (Equal)
• App List (Better…. there is no way to list apps on the BB)
• Bubbles (Better, another baby game)
• Jewels (Equal – no Texas Hold’em but, a distraction at least)
• Decepticons Theme for Flyscreen (Better – helps hide functional icons on Flyscreen)
• 2G-3G OnOff (Better)
• Rundroid+ (Better – lets me see my Nike+ stats)
• Key Ring (Better – Wallet works, but this can be scanned)
• Evernote (Equal, but a better app)
• iCalManager TRIAL (Equal, almost – needed to get ics invites into the calendar, but only on the device, not out to Google)
• Run+ (Better – another Nike+ app)
• Dolphin Browser (Better, better than Bolt)
• AndExplorer (Better – a file explorer)
• Facebook (Equal, almost, still can’t send “mail/inbox messages” natively, it defaults to the mobile site)
• Compass (Better – helps augment maps)
• Account at http://iphoneconvert.com/ to listen to voicemail over email

So if you want your new ‘droid to be almost to a ‘berry or iPhone, you’ll need to do some dling, hopefully this list helps.

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By Raj, December 30, 2009 10:36 pm

Well let’s deal with the problems first…

First, Android 1.5 doesn’t play nicely with ics files, so invites over email don’t work. Even if you use the browser(s), it seems that you can’t accept the invite via that method either. So even though the calendar updates like greased lightening to Google Calendar, you have to add meetings you are invited to manually (for now) and you can’t use the calendar app to invite others. If you want to do that you have to use the web interface.

Second, Android chews data like there is no tomorrow. Granted the 150+MB that I’ve used in the last 24h is as much due to grabbing apps, playing with YouTube and otherwise populating the device. This device is going to certainly push me through the 250-300MB/month that I was pushing on the Bold, so I’m glad I have been able to “slide” my data plan over, according to two Rogers agents, there is no difference in BB and regular data. This is a nice seque into the good.

The good… just about everything. I purchased the device 24h second hand off Kijiji and the guy I got it from basically had done what I was planning on doing – Buy the $450 Hero (vs the $600 Magic), unlock it and get it ready to roll on Rogers by updating the APN and other settings.

APN: internet.com
Primary gateway IP: 172.25.0.107
Username: wapuser1
Password: wap

APN: internet.com
Username: guest
Password: guest

MMS Settings:
MMSC: http://mms.gprs.rogers.com
APN: media.com
Username: media
Password: mda01
Server: 172.25.0.107

So a quick SIM card swap and a quick boot later (way faster than BB!) I was up and running.

In my first 24h I’ve played with Layar and this is really where things are going to go in my opinion. AR will give data a home in our world, not just on screens in an office, lab or class. I’ve played with Google Sky and been blown away by this “ancient AR” app. I’ve had to grab the Smsfixtimes app to deal with the SMS timestamp issue, but that opened the world to the modular nature of the phone. Don’t like the default client for “X”, find another one and try it out and more often than not, it works (except it seems for games that seem to really suck right now).

I’ve grabbed chompsms as my SMS client now, I use Dolphin as a secondary browser (for one essential feature – saving YouTube videos… ’cause you never know when Bug’s going to want/need a silly song) and I’ve grabbed Ringdroid to chop mp3s into ringtones easily. All this is Android stuff, but where this device really shines is via the Sense UI.

Ubergadets are all about data and HTC has figured out that data is only useful when it is presented at the right time. So HTC has cooked up Scenes that let you choose how to display data. I thought this was a gimmick at first, but as I build the Scenes, they are making more and more sense. Some of the widgets are GPS enabled, so the update based on location, other apps help with usability in certain conditions – like driving. So until Eclair hits (I’m hoping I’ll be able to do the update even though I’m not with Telus ) I can build my own car mode.

I’m just starting to scratch the surface and if I were to characterize the experience that I’ve had so far when it comes to smartphones – WinMo is your ‘rents phone… it’s a computer that got misplaced to make calls, the iPhone is for those who want everything neat and tidy, BB is for those who want a bit more customization, but want to have a solid base underneath, Android is the wild west with things coming and going – pretty good most of the time, but there are some rough spots that really give it character.

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By Raj, September 24, 2008 9:12 am

TR has a look at the G1, Google’s first phone – and legitimately we can call it Google’s first – as the article mentions, as Apple and MS have done before, Google has set the specs as opposed to the network provider. I’m curious to find out if Nokia and Motorolla really bend over to the networks that much to make their handsets “fit” … but that is another conversation.

Anyway, I think that now that this phone is out, there is a fairly obvious new platform to start training our students on and about – if not creating/developing for, at least using. Phones are generally easy enough to use, but with the exception of some older relatives, I haven’t heard of many younger people being unable to use at least the basic phone and messaging elements of a phone, but as smartphone popularity increases, I’m sure we’ll have to teach students how to use phones as well as computers… or will we?

Hopefully, the menu buttons will be easy enough to find and the descriptions will be self explanitory so we won’t have some fool on TV selling CDs on “how to use your phone” like there are “how to use IE”.

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By Raj, December 4, 2007 2:15 pm

Well it seems that the handset makers have got some company now in the form of a network provider – Verzion has joined up. Granted this is only interesting in the US, but it does suggest that people are starting to think in the telecom area that their service isn’t something that is so specialized as to lock others out. Granted that is the way that they can make the most money, but telecom should be like a general utility – any functioning client should be able to hop on (perhaps at a cost) – and it seems that Verizon might be thinking that way now.

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By Raj, November 11, 2007 2:32 am

Many other bloggers (education types as well as others -and http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2117/135/-) have noticed Canadians pay quite a bit for wireless services, to say nothing about mobile data. Many have asked why… generally the answer is greed on the part of the telcos. But topping this, I think it also has something to do with what the telcos think smartphones are really for… they think they are for business only use up here, where everywhere else in the world is thinking that smartphones are for everyone. This is something that Rogers is going to have to change if it wants the iPhone (or so the Globe mentioned recently), as it seems that Bell is planning on doing with it’s new Windows Mobile device – and considering that Rogers is now also jumping onto Windows Mobile, they are going to have take notice.

Apple has certainly changed a few things already – shifting power in the wireless sphere from the networks to the handheld maker, something that I think is already the case elsewhere in the world where unlocked phones rule. Apple has been able to make demands of wireless carriers the world over. This is something that might might certainly happen with Google’s Android as well, especially with the weight of an Alliance.

If you put this together – handset manufacturers that actually manage the user experience and customers that have the choice to access the utility that is wireless service as they want – and what might happen… I don’t know, but I think it’s going to look something like the way that laptops and desktops look like on wired networks. If you think about it, in that model, there is still quite a bit of money being made, and it’s certainly worked to get us to this point.