Now the real fun starts!

I've managed to get paid apps to work on my phones and I've got root access, now it's time to start messing around big time!
I've started really reading the XDA  forums and started to understand how Android works. I had a Motorola Milestone with Android 2.2 (Froyo) and my Xperia X10 with Android 1.6 (Donut). The Milestone had stock android and was running smoothly, but the battery life was very bad. I had real problems getting through the day with it. The solution came from one of the greatest apps I know in the market: Titanium Backup, with it I could freeze and uninstall system apps. Freezing an app is a less definitive solution to uninstalling. It stops the app from working without actually removing it from your system folder, so if you have a problem after freezing an app you can just defrost it...
So I started freezing the bloatware that was installed on my phone. After I froze a hole lot of apps I've never used and some lame games my battery nearly doubled!! Now was time to address the X10 problems...
The Xperia was laggy and also had a bad battery life, but this time the biggest blame was on the Timescape interface, if sucks battery like there's no tomorrow!! So I froze a hole lot of it, the Timescape app, the Mediascape, and other pointless apps. But the one thing I froze that made the biggest difference to me was the face recognition for the camera, I never used and it worked non stop on the background eating away my battery. The full list of apps to remove after you get root access can be found here. Now that I have a much better battery life with my phones there's no way to improve it....or is there?? That's when I found out about custom ROMs...

PS: You can only freeze apps with the pro version of Titanium Backup. It's not the cheapest app on the market but you'll not regret getting it for a second!

So THAT's how you do it...

Now that I managed to find this great source of knowledge, my beloved XDA forums, I could start messing around to try and make my Android phones better.
One of the first things I started reading about was root access. For those of you who don't know what that is I'll try to explain in a simple way. Root access is what you need to change your android device in deeper ways, it's almost the same as having the freedom to change any file you want in the Windows system folders... For those that want the more technical approach this link has a nice explanation. At first I was put off by the complex tutorials and DANGER signs all over. But then I found this app: the Universal AndRoot, which was supposed to be safe to use, no danger of bricking your phone. So I got my Milestone and tried it......... And voilà!! I had root access to my Motorola Milestone! With that I got more confident about messing around a bit more with my phones. So I got my Xperia X10 and installed the same program and also got root access to my X10!! Now things were starting to look good. With one little detail left, I still couldn't get paid apps...
But then I found this: the Market Enabler. This nifty app allows you to "fake" your location so the Market believes that you're in the US or Europe, or any other place that has paid apps! This app still works for those of you guys who live in countries without paid apps or even without Market!
Since then I could now use my phones to their full potential!!

PS: From now on I'll try to squeeze at least one tip on each post to help you guys, especially those new to android!
PPS: I've made an app for my Blog and it's already in the Market, you have the link right under the title and here is the QR code, enjoy!