Rooting an Android is the equivalent of “Jailbreaking” an iPhone or flashing custom Roms to your Winmo device. Why root your Android phone though? Primarily, to allow you to access all of the open source joy that is Android, to allow you to use custom roms and let you take advantage of a lot of the free apps in the Market that require root access.
Mainly, it’s about making your phone your own, but for the more practical minded of us out there, who don’t have the time to surf thousands of websites for the latest modded roms, there’s an app for that. The whole process of rooting and modifying an Android device has been made a lot simpler with the help of application devs.
ROM Manager for Android is an application that lets you automate rom flashing and backup, on your device, letting you backup your current ROM if you want to revert quickly. It offers a range of online options but will let you flash a saved ROM from your SD Card as well. This is probably the best way to fiddle with an Android phone, it’s pretty self explanatory as an application, there’s a free, and premium version, but I’ve found the free adequate. I’m liking the ease of this and am flashing a rom as I type this. Rom Manager is available in the Market for rooted phones!
Post written by Peter Murphy on
September 7, 2010
in
Android,Mobile Software
Obviously, running Android on a Windows Mobile phone, booting from your SD card is going to create a few issues. Add into the Mix that it’s Froyo, the latest iteration of Android[version 2.2] a lot of the apps in the market are not yet up to speed.
So the one app I’m looking for, is a good backup program, preferably free. I’ve tried a few tonight and the one that works fine is Back It Up Free [BIUF].
Now it excludes a couple of major areas, that you would not want to exclude, namely contacts and MMS messages, but a good reason to get the premium app.
It’s a really simple application, that does one thing well, backs up the selected data to your SD card, and easily restores it with the touch of a button.
On installation, BIUF creates a Back It Up folder on your devices SD card, every time you run a back up you name the file and it resides in that folder. The app knows that and when you go for a restore brings up a list of known files by default. The pro version is available for $0.99 from the Android Market. It fills in the gaps I mentioned. Who knows, I may even spring for it 
Post written by Peter Murphy on
August 22, 2010
in
Android,HTAndroiD2,Mobile Software
The popularity of location based services like ForeSquare, has sort of been lost on me, although I’ll often post a GPS
co-ordinate with a tweet. ForeSquare seems to be a social networking extension that allows you to post info about places you like to your friends, both on Twitter and Facebook. Even extending to traffic tips and good stores. Basically a way to share about local businesses that you like, and be awarded points, and badges for. So ForeSquare takes the social Media “Citizen Reporter” up a level to a “Citizen Reviewer”. Basically, it’s a covert way for you to be the PR representative, for your fave local businesses to your network.
Why I haven’t used ForeSquare before, is the lack of a good WinMo Client. When you first go to the site to sign up, you will notice that there are apps for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Palm. The other devices link, takes you to a mobile login page, and that’s where Windows Mobile devices are relegated to, using a browser on your phone to log in to the service. It somehow negates the immediacy of a service like ForeSquare, “Oh I’m Here, I like this place “, so I’ll open a browser, go to a bookmark, log in and then check in. To many steps right? Well a new Beta app for Windows Mobile called MySquare, caught my eye today at XDA Devs.
Read On
Post written by Peter Murphy on
August 2, 2010
in
Mobile Software,Social Networking,windows mobile
This is a little app for WinMo, that according to the developer, should work with WinMo5 and up. A user at XDA, oldsap, has come up with a way to give voice on your windows mobile device. It’s working flawlessly on my HD2, and it’s really quite quaint. It reminds me a bit of the old phone, “on the third stroke the time will be” talking clock from most landlines.
Feaures:
- can be set at 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, 30 min, or 60 min intervals.
- does not run in the background so it won’t eat up resources and battery juice.
- tested on HTC Ozone
- should work on WM5 and above
- INSTALL IN DEVICE MEMORY
How to Use:
- run the TalkingClock application
- choose the time interval you want it to tell the time then click on SET INTERVAL
- click START
- exit the application
- to stop the application from further announcing the time, launch the TalkingClock application again and click on STOP, then exit
You can set intervals from 5 to 60 minutes in the application, and easily turn it on and off. It’s a nice little app, one thing of note, if your device is set to auto lock like most, the app doesn’t function whilst the device is locked, at the moment.
Download Link Is Here
Post written by Peter Murphy on
July 31, 2010
in
Mobile Software,windows mobile
