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CyanogenMod 10 On My HTC EVO LTE

Anyone that knows me understands that I can’t sit with a stock Android device for long. So far I have had a Barnes and Noble Nook Color that I rooted the first night of owner ship and installed CM7 as soon as the community ported over the code to it. I later Owned an LG Optimus S and I rooted it and installed a custom recovery and ROM. I went with CM7 on that device as I enjoyed CyanogenMod on my Nook and after trying other ROMs on my Optimus, I found myself longing for the tweaks and style that the CyanogenMod team provides.

Last August I upgraded to an HTC Evo LTE. I decided to go with that as opposed to a Samsung S3 due to my brother having one and the fun of working on the same phone and because I liked the hardware of the EVO. It looked and felt like it was really well built.

After getting my EVO I immediately rooted it using the files and directions at this thread on XDA:

 How to Root/Unroot HTC Evo 4G LTE! [Windows/Mac/Linux][One-Click][<=1.22.651.1]

I then waited until this month to root because most of the mature ROMS available were Sense based. If you are unfamiliar with HTC Sense it really gets in the way of an enjoyable Android experience. The biggest issues being the limited multitasking, app associations defaults being messed up and the camera refocusing constantly while I took videos or pictures. I wanted to get as far away as I could to Sense.

So this morning I prepared my phone for loading a custom ROM by first achieving S-Off with LazyPanda. The information on the Unlimited.IO website made the process very easy. As a note my phone was on Hboot 1.12 (I never upgraded my phones software). Others with an Hboot higher than that will need to use HTC Dev Unlock to install a custom rom. With HTC Dev Unlock a person can do most everything S-Off can but it takes a few more steps.

After achieving S-Off I installed a custom recovery. For this I went the easy route of downloading the GooManager App and installing Team Win Recovery Project (TWRP) through that. More information about TWRP can be found at this XDA thread:

 [RECOVERY][EVO4GLTE] TWRP 2.2.2.0 with on-screen keyboard!

So at that point my bootloader was unlocked and I had a custom recovery installed. I was then ready to install a ROM. At this point I went to the CM10 thread on XDA. Reading the comments it seemed Jelly Bean for the EVO was stable enough for my use. Your opinion or results may differ so please read the thread there. I downloaded the zip file for CM10 along with a separate zip for Google Apps. I then backed up my applications with Titanium Backup. This made some setup later easier. I then rebooted into recovery and another backup in TWRP. You can’t have too many backups! I then did a factory reset, cleared cache and installed the zip. After resetting the phone kept booting into recovery. I ended up flashing the rom three separate times before it loaded properly. I honestly don’t know what made the difference. After successfully loading CM10 I recovered my apps using Titanium. One of the individuals in the Freenode IRC chat for #htc-evo-4g-lte recommended clearing Dalvik Cache after loading my apps so I did that. So far everything has been running great and my phone is looking much happier!

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Google shutting down more services

Google announced on Friday that it will be doing some “spring cleaning” of some of its services. The list includes AdSense for Feeds, Classic Plus, Spreadsheet Gadgets, Places for Android, and +1 Reports in Webmaster Tools.

The company also plans to merge its Picasa photo service with Google Drive, which means you’ll have 5GB of free storage for both Picasa photos and Drive items. I hope this means that the interface will be better integrated between the two services.

A service previously announced that my family will miss will be iGoogle for the browser. I’ll be sure to find a substitute for my wife prior to that being shuttered but it’s something she will miss.

 

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End Piracy, Not Liberty

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. The intent of the bills is to stop the illegal downloading of copyrighted material… the outcome will be far different.

SOPA and PIPA would allow the U.S. government to order the blocking of sites using methods similar to those employed by China and Egypt. Do we want to model our country after totalitarian regimes?

SOPA and PIPA would kill jobs by legislation and litigation. U.S. Internet companies would have to monitor everything users upload or link to or risk expensive litigation. It’s also why 55 of America’s most successful venture capitalists expressed concern that PIPA “would stifle investment in Internet services, throttle innovation, and hurt American competitiveness”. More than 204 entrepreneurs told Congress that PIPA and SOPA would “hurt economic growth and chill innovation”.

While SOPA and PIPA claim they will stop piracy, they won’t even accomplish that. Nefarious sites will just change their names while law abiding companies will suffer with constantly attempting to stay in compliance with mandates given them.

When you add it all up these proposed laws will censor, stifle the American economy and fail to achieve the claimed outcome. How could anyone support these pieces of legislation?

Contact your representative now! [Link courtesy of Wikipedia]

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Why I rooted my LG Optimus S and installed CM7

I first decided to root it after an OTA update noticeably slowed down the phone. Any custom ROM will do a lot for performance on the phone. The best forum for the Optimus S is on Android Central. Gingerbreak is the current method to root the phone… I used an earlier more complicated method.

The directions for using Gingerbreak can be found at:
http://forums.androidcentral.com/lg-optimus-s-rooting-roms-hacks/79208-how-rooting-ls670zvd-gingerbreak-no-reverting-ota-works-too.html

I am using the latest Stable build of CM7 from Drew. He takes CM7 and builds it based on CM7 nighties with a few builds being marked as stable. He introduces his own hacks to CM7 to optimize it for the Optimus. I was running an earlier port of CM7 but love the optimizations and fixes that Drew has performed.

You can find the rom and directions for CM7 at:
http://forums.androidcentral.com/lg-optimus-s-rooting-roms-hacks/106518-drews-cm7-builds-stable-08-02-2011-experimental-08-03-2011-a.html
I wrote this post for all those asking me why I rooted my phone and how they could root their LG Optimus S.

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