And we're BACK!!

Hi guys, sorry it's been so long but we're getting back to action. And I say we because there's a new contributor to the blog. A great friend of mine Young Soo Moon. Moon has had his fair share of Android devices, including a tablet so he'll have a lot to tell you guys...

On the last post I was talking about getting Android Open Source Project on my Xperia X10, it did a lot for my device but it was never 100%, never reached a stable enough state to make me happy about it. So after about a year with my X10 it was time to move on... My first choice at the time was the Sony Xperia Arc. It was a beautiful device with good hardware and arrived with an up to date version of android. But it wasn't to be... I went to my operator's store but the VIP section of the store wasn't available because it was a weekend. So I had to wait a little longer, and then in the following week I spotted this article on the blog from my operator (I'm sorry it's only in Portuguese), which means that the Galaxy SII was coming to Brazil and more importantly to my operator!!! By then the Samsung Galaxy SII was the best cell phone available in the world, I wanted it badly and on top of everything, being the thinnest, lightest and faster phone out there it had an UNLOCKED BOOTLOADER!!! In case you don't know why that's important having a locked bootloader was the biggest reason the X10 developers had problems doing anything good for it. So on top of being a top of the line phone it was going to be easy to develop for!!! In other words it's pretty much everything you want in an android device!

So two weeks after that I went to my mobile operator's store to get one for me. I still had a month and a half left on my contract so I had to haggle a bit to get a good price for it. I managed to get it for about U$200,00 which was pretty much my budget for a new phone so I went ahead and bought it. WOW!!! Was I impressed, the phone was ridiculously fast and looked great, the screen looked incredible! But it was riddled with bloatware, but now I knew how to make this device even better.
So I got home and immediately dived head first on XDA forums and found the ROM that looked to be the best one available VillainROM, eventually I discovered that pulser was a recognized developer with great track record on XDA already. So I knew I'd found a keeper. I installed it and then it seems I was too excited about it and forgot to wipe anything when I first installed... That was a big newbie mistake and it caused the phone.apk - which is basically the app that makes your phone a phone - to force close constantly!! After freaking out a bit I calmed down and did it again, wiping everything now, and this time everything worked great!! I had the best phone in the world running the best ROM available for it!!!!
Life was good, but nothing is perfect, one of my favorite features from the X10 was missing completely from the GSII, the notification led... And then BLN came... (Back Light Notification) but that's a story for the next post...

PS: In this time I've been away I got myself an android tablet the Asus Transformer Prime and still have my Samsung Galaxy SII and I'm looking forward for the next Samsung flagship device... http://www.tgeltaayehxnx.com/

PPS: I know it's a little late for the party but if you haven't tried Temple Run you should try it! It's a great and addictive game and it's free!!

How my mother's phone changed my life

So there I was, I had my android but had no idea how to actually make the most of it.
My mother had a Samsung Omnia, which had Windows mobile 6, and was not quite happy with it. It wasn't easy to personalize, there wasn't a market to get apps to make your phone work the way you wanted like Android or iOS and my mother is the kind of person who likes things her way... And she had to do things the Omnia way. I'm talking about my mother's phone right now because that changed my Android life forever... she saw everything I could do with my phone and how I could change things to adapt to my liking and quickly decided she wanted one too, but she didn't want a phone with a physical keyboard - like my Motorola Milestone.
By this time our mobile operator was offering the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and I thought that it would fit her needs. So we went to our mobile operator store to get one for her. When we got there the attendant showed it to us - yes, I went with her, I always go with her to anything that regards technology to help her out - she liked it and said that this was what she wanted. Then she told us the price and my mother got immediately deflated. She doesn't like to spend too much money on gadgets, but then the attendant told us that there was a way to pay less. Because we had unlimited data plans we were VIP costumers and could schedule a meeting to discuss pricing and get special discounts. So when we got home I went and scheduled a visit to their VIP section for both me and my mother. By then the idea was to get a new phone for her but with back to back appointments there would be more time to negotiate. I had no clue at that point that I wouldn't need a lot of time.
The day we went for our VIP appointment we got there early and waited a bit. When the meeting started I explained the situation: the back to back appointments, the phone my mother wanted, and that I was there mostly to help her, but that I wouldn't mind getting a new phone myself. The moment that the attendant told us that we both could get the Xperia X10 for FREE, we couldn't believe it and gladly accepted it!
And just like that, almost as accidentally as I got my first android I got my second one. Now that I had two androids I could afford to crash one of them! So I started going around the web to see how I could make my brand new Xperia X10 even better. I quickly found out about debranding. And how that would release from the "curse" of having a device in a country that doesn't get much attention from manufacturers. After a hole lot of googling around I found XDA and their forums. And then, and only then, a good six months after I first got my hands on an android, I started understanding how much I could do with it...