"Trendy" Android Bags (For MEN/WOMEN)

"Trendy" Android Bags (For MEN/WOMEN) - Desire Accessories

Came across URL REMOVED thread earlier today made by XDA member EDIT. Basically, his partner made a really nice quality looking custom android bag - yes they are aimed for women, but if they appeal to you, then I guess that will work too
Through pm, there may also be the suggestion of a phone pouch being produced, and if interest gathers, then obviously more could be produced (if feasible), maybe with possibly your own custom android logo.
Anyway, check it out guys (and girls) and see what you think.

Thread closed pending confirmation of an issue regarding advertising.

Related

Stop treating the "Wooters" like idiots

Is it just me or are the folks here a little catty with the "wooters"? You'd think we don't know how to operate technology. Did I spell all that correctly? But seriously, thanks to the good folks trying to help. I just don't like the pompous comments like the newcomers can't operate a tablet and some software. Peace.

ArkansasRazorbacks said:
Is it just me or are the folks here a little catty with the "wooters"? You'd think we don't know how to operate technology. Did I spell all that correctly? But seriously, thanks to the good folks trying to help. I just don't like the pompous comments like the newcomers can't operate a tablet and some software. Peace.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
I think that it was discovered fairly recently that there are some serious potential incompatibilities in the latest unofficial rom (3991), and the devs, and others have had their hands full trying to help people. I don't know firsthand, but I imagine between this forum, the irc channel, and PMs, they must helped a ton of people.
Then the woot deal happened this week, and everybody probably worried about multiples of that, so I think the posts/threads about "be careful", were just proactive to try to help users avoid problems.
JMHO.
Jim

I'm a "Wooter" and came over here to get info on ROM/firmware builds for the device. I'm a current unhacked Archos 70 owner, and have had Samsung Captivate and HTC Evo 4G as well.
I haven't really seen _much_ condescension from this community on the Woot influx. Just some tongue-in-cheek "there goes the neighborhood" and "here come the n00bs" stuff.
I'm ready to admit that I am a n00b with the Viewsonic device, but welcome any help and "ROMs for Dummies" tutorials from this community.
My device should be here on Tuesday, so I hope to see a built and optimized 2.3 firmware package by Wednesday. :-D

jimcpl said:
Hi,
I think that it was discovered fairly recently that there are some serious potential incompatibilities in the latest unofficial rom (3991), and the devs, and others have had their hands full trying to help people. I don't know firsthand, but I imagine between this forum, the irc channel, and PMs, they must helped a ton of people.
Then the woot deal happened this week, and everybody probably worried about multiples of that, so I think the posts/threads about "be careful", were just proactive to try to help users avoid problems.
JMHO.
Jim
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That may be somewhat true but when I first bought my GTab and I got it from Office Depot and came to this thread I experienced the same unfriendly treatment. Most are just trying to learn and better GTab. Not here for confrontation, argument or unnecessary challenge.
To the original poster, I get what you are saying and don't feel singled out because you are Woot. Some here don't make newcomers feel welcome. Why I don't know. After awhile (and it should not exist at all) it tapers off, hopefully for you more sooner than later. Enjoy your GTab.

I'm a wooter, too. My woot gtab should arrive tomorrow. That said, you have to admit that the woot deal is probably the single factor that brought/will bring a significant higher people to this site. And please understand that many of us have spent years dealing with the non-tech savy. We know how the typical non-tech savy behave.

What I've generally seen so far is a lot of "please read the FAQ's" and "please use search" and "please read the instructions thoroughly when modding". I've also done a few tongue in cheek comments, but if anything else I'm not being condescending -- if anything else I'm a little nervous at the amount of users that might be coming. Everyone was a n00b once.
When new users come in small dribs and drabs, I think the forum has been able to handle it. But if there are potentially hundreds of new users in the next week, it's going to be complete madness.
I've actually re-written ALL my main posts, with Woot users in mind. If anything else, the Wooters have gotten me off my sorry arse and gotten me to really look at my instructions and go through them with a fine-tooth comb to ensure that stuff is clear.
One of the other reasons for my own temporary push of posts is because it's EOM and I may have a smaller footprint this week (work stuff). So I'm spouting my concerns now before my visibility is lessened.

roebeet said:
What I've generally seen so far is a lot of "please read the FAQ's" and "please use search" and "please read the instructions thoroughly when modding". I've also done a few tongue in cheek comments, but if anything else I'm not being condescending -- if anything else I'm a little nervous at the amount of users that might be coming. Everyone was a n00b once.
When new users come in small dribs and drabs, I think the forum has been able to handle it. But if there are potentially hundreds of new users in the next week, it's going to be complete madness.
I've actually re-written ALL my main posts, with Woot users in mind. If anything else, the Wooters have gotten me off my sorry arse and gotten me to really look at my instructions and go through them with a fine-tooth comb to ensure that stuff is clear.
One of the other reasons for my own temporary push of posts is because it's EOM and I may have a smaller footprint this week (work stuff). So I'm spouting my concerns now before my visibility is lessened.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, Roebeet and I am laughing. It is always rough when you are starting out with new equipment even if it is functioning properly. Throw unstable into the mix and you will have tens of thousands trying to figure out stability real fast.
Also, I cruised Amazon's tabs yesterday and they have GTab as number one best selling on their site. The buyer's reviews all point to XDA and immediately modding your tab. I'm not kidding. This tab was a sleeper because most tech mags--cnet, pc mag, pc world, etc. gave it bad reviews. However, when people got their hands on one (from at a store, friend, peer, colleague, family member or such) it was a different story. The general public is now starting to respond favorably to GTab. You may get even more traffic.
I like your spirit though, you are good people. Look at this community as the future "tech forum facebook" 500 million and counting... Hey it is a blessing when you have multiple mainstream sites throwing traffic your way. You don't have to work at SEO rankings. Please translate that to some of the other people who are here already that make newcomers feel unwelcome. The term wooters is not nice. What happened to "new G Tab owners"? Some egos here need to be minimized on the task bar or forced close. -Peace, mostly this is a good site offering a wealth of information.

My $.02 ..
the people who have been on here, and owned a gtab for a while are the people who are more apt to purchase bleeding-edge gadgets, and are generally more savy and aware of potential problems..
Some may be viewing the "wooters" as uninformed consumers looking for the best deal ..
yeah, i realize this is a huge generalization but i imagine alot of people are thinking the same thing..
so i say "Welcome wooters !" (just don't ask a question thats been answered 38 times) hehe

edirector said:
Thanks, Roebeet and I am laughing. It is always rough when you are starting out with new equipment even if it is functioning properly. Throw unstable into the mix and you will have tens of thousands trying to figure out stability real fast.
Also, I cruised Amazon's tabs yesterday and they have GTab as number one best selling on their site. The buyer's reviews all point to XDA and immediately modding your tab. I'm not kidding. This tab was a sleeper because most tech mags--cnet, pc mag, pc world, etc. gave it bad reviews. However, when people got their hands on one (from at a store, friend, peer, colleague, family member or such) it was a different story. The general public is now starting to respond favorably to GTab. You may get even more traffic.
I like your spirit though, you are good people. Look at this community as the future "tech forum facebook" 500 million and counting... Hey it is a blessing when you have multiple mainstream sites throwing traffic your way. You don't have to work at SEO rankings. Please translate that to some of the other people who are here already that make newcomers feel unwelcome. The term wooters is not nice. What happened to "new G Tab owners"? Some egos here need to be minimized on the task bar or forced close. -Peace, mostly this is a good site offering a wealth of information.
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Click to collapse
I was a Wooter long before I joined XDA - don't worry, it's an acceptable term and we wear it with pride.
Btw, I have NEVER managed to snag a Bandolier of Carrots - always a bridesmaid, never a bride.....

ArkansasRazorbacks said:
Is it just me or are the folks here a little catty with the "wooters"? You'd think we don't know how to operate technology. Did I spell all that correctly? But seriously, thanks to the good folks trying to help. I just don't like the pompous comments like the newcomers can't operate a tablet and some software. Peace.
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Click to collapse
I know this is off topic but couldn't help and notice you're a Razorbacks fan. Good to see another Arkansas guy here on the forums. Where are you located? I'm in Conway right now attending UCA. I'm also another wooter waiting for his G-Tablet!

Maybe us Wooters could be put to use. I'd be glad to donate some time to work on a wiki, for example, although I've never actually put one together. Surely there is something that new board members could do.

Sorry for the long post but I must echo the sentiments of others. It is not the intent of most to make new members feel unwelcome, as I can remember when I first got the Gtabs for my wife and myself after finding the community support of XDA. Even in the smaller Gtab/XDA community, members had problems and needed to be helped, many would not use the search function and just ask repeatedly about issues that had already been addressed and resolved. Now that Android tablets are coming to light with the heavily advertised Xoom, the fear is simply that thanks to the overwhelming response to WOOT the common questions will appear again and again as our great forums expand to receive more and more new members. I'm sure that there is no animosity or malice intended, just an attempt to make new members aware of possible pitfalls and resolutions. More users will make this forum and the Gtab better and better.
Welcome to all

I don't think the majority of the users are treating Wooters as idiots, just trying to make their Gtab experience a good one. R emember that when most of us started adding ROMs there weren't several stock builds and several dozen flavors of ROMs to choose from. Also the users that experienced severe interaction problems were bleeding edge guys who expected issues and were willing to work through them. Based on many of the new owners questions, many are expecting to load a new ROM and have an ipad killer. As you read the rooting instructions don't skip the " Risk" section.

Its not just going to be the wooters. Circut City and Tiger Direct selling it for $299. there will be alot of wooters, Tigers and Circiters I guess. This forum is going to explode soon with folks. I dont think people are condesending but I think alot of folks are nerveous about the amount of people coming in here by next weekend.

Here's the biggest drawback I see.
1.) Influx of lazy forum users who post a question without searching. Those new threads go unanswered or with more knowledgeable members say "Use the search". Now, non-lazy forum users come in, with their newly purchased GTab, hit the search, and they end up with 3 pages of useless threads as listed before.
2.) The knowledgeable members need to work on concentrating the info into ONE FAQ or Wiki style. Right now, the number of stuck threads is getting a tad ridiculous. When there are 12 stuck threads that say "READ FIRST", it falls into the same category as the saying "If everything is high priority, nothing is".
I almost wish we could lock the ROMs from being downloaded, until someone has READ 10 threads (as opposed to being able to post in the dev section prior to posting 10 times).
In saying all that, I read a lot before I bought my tab, I read a few threads multiple times AFTER I bought my tab, to make sure I was doing it right. I just wish others had the same patience and diligence.

vaccdroid said:
Its not just going to be the wooters. Circut City and Tiger Direct selling it for $299. there will be alot of wooters, Tigers and Circiters I guess. This forum is going to explode soon with folks. I dont think people are condesending but I think alot of folks are nerveous about the amount of people coming in here by next weekend.
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Click to collapse
Nervous? I'm terrified.
I've been on the Woot! GTAB discussion thread, heavily. Long before I chimed in, XDA was mentioned repeatedly over there.
h3llphyre said:
Here's the biggest drawback I see.
1.) Influx of lazy forum users who post a question without searching. Those new threads go unanswered or with more knowledgeable members say "Use the search". Now, non-lazy forum users come in, with their newly purchased GTab, hit the search, and they end up with 3 pages of useless threads as listed before.
2.) The knowledgeable members need to work on concentrating the info into ONE FAQ or Wiki style. Right now, the number of stuck threads is getting a tad ridiculous. When there are 12 stuck threads that say "READ FIRST", it falls into the same category as the saying "If everything is high priority, nothing is".
I almost wish we could lock the ROMs from being downloaded, until someone has READ 10 threads (as opposed to being able to post in the dev section prior to posting 10 times).
In saying all that, I read a lot before I bought my tab, I read a few threads multiple times AFTER I bought my tab, to make sure I was doing it right. I just wish others had the same patience and diligence.
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Click to collapse
When I re-wrote my ROM posts, I moved the downloads nearer to the bottom, on purpose, with the hopes that new users would read through the post first. Probably unlikely, but worth a shot.
Btw, there's already a request for a Wiki or main FAQ section, via the moderator thread in General (I chimed in, as well). But I don't get the feeling that it's going to happen, at least not yet.

roebeet said:
Nervous? I'm terrified.
I've been on the Woot! GTAB discussion thread, heavily. Long before I chimed in, XDA was mentioned repeatedly over there.
When I re-wrote my ROM posts, I moved the downloads nearer to the bottom, on purpose, with the hopes that new users would read through the post first. Probably unlikely, but worth a shot.
Btw, there's already a request for a Wiki or main FAQ section, via the moderator thread in General (I chimed in, as well). But I don't get the feeling that it's going to happen, at least not yet.
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Lol, I was one of those answering questions and pushing people sitting on the fense over into our yard.
Great device- Great people here Talked work into picking up 9 for the techs .
Selling my personal one and picking up a xoom (got a work one comming now )
I have seen the n00b bashing on this forum before... Sometimes I sympathise with both sides though....
I have seen where the whole first page is 75% I have bricked my tablet HELP!!! and then someone else posts same thing again....
Other times I have seen a single Help post only to be met with USE THE SEARCH N00b!!!... When the issue actually wasn't something answered completely before..
SO I think we all need to take a chill pill (except Roebeet, He is totally exempt and allowed to throw a fit if he wants he he) And just deal with answering the same question 5k times . The returns from it should be pretty good. The larger the community the more developers etc we will also inherit

I am a fellow wooter and am looking forward to getting my G tablet tomorrow. I was pretty intent on doing a mod but with recent posts I am re considering that decision. I just hope that Honeycomb is released for the device eventually, although I will not hold my breath.
Roebeet, I think you should look at this as an opportunity. I have not even received my tablet yet but I have already donated $5 to you. There are over 10,000 new owners who could all use your advice and your expertice. If they all do the same you could have a nice side career. I hope I will never have to bother you for any assitance. I think I will stay stock for a while and then maybe I will try a ROM. I am not a total newb, I did manage to successfully root my Droid and install Gingerbread, but I am always squeamish about modding devices. You can fail a heck of lot easier than you can succeed. But if I do ever need help I think that you are the guy!

Think I am more on the fence about modding also due to the low cost of thbis tablet. If you do something to it you cant return it for a new one at woot. Woot doesnt really do returns easy and if they do take it back you get your money back not a new one. then if you want another you will have to get lucky looking for another deal ( like at Tiger Direct this weekend) or buy one for $400. For me thats too risky to just play around with it.
ALso as for honeycomb on here. Probally a better chance that it will happen considering that there are 10-15 thousand more G Tablet owners now then there were last week. They dont support devices for long if they dont sell but this G tablet is now a big seller. * Woot-Circut Ciity-Tiger Direct etc).

aaron19953 said:
My $.02 ..
the people who have been on here, and owned a gtab for a while are the people who are more apt to purchase bleeding-edge gadgets, and are generally more savy and aware of potential problems..
Some may be viewing the "wooters" as uninformed consumers looking for the best deal ..
yeah, i realize this is a huge generalization but i imagine alot of people are thinking the same thing..
so i say "Welcome wooters !" (just don't ask a question thats been answered 38 times) hehe
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Click to collapse
Well I think those who might feel that way, need to do a reality check. It is really is hard being a noob and everyone starts out as one.
Yes, I am a deal hunter but hardly an uninformed consumer. Hopefully people are aware of what they are getting themselves in for, but true there will be some who have no clue.
From what I have seen/read, the seniors and mods have been good and fair, but like other blogs, the search sucks and people get scared/frustrated so patience and education will be required. It's tough reading a zillion posts to find an answer.
Just my two cents.
FYI I've been a software developer for 25+ years and was literally doing ROMs (as in burning images to silicon) before the idea of smart phones or tablets existed. I worked at a small company named "Poqet Computer" (hence the poqeteer alias), the first pocket sized PC. Unfortunately it was way before its time and like other startups... Died. Also unfortunately that has very little to do with this piece of hardware... So please be kind to this and all other noobs.
- Lance.

Are devs getting greedy?

Just curious what everyone's opinion is on this.
When I got my first android phone in 2010, a Samsung Fascinate, it seemed to be a burgeoning scene with the developers doing dev'ing for the fun of it and getting rewarded by an appreciative end user.
Fast forward nine months and I am ready for 4g so I slap down my $600 for a charge and watch a molasses like and seemingly dormant dev scene.
There is excuse after excuse as to why the scene is quiet and then there is wind of an "in development" ICS ROM. This is put forth via twitter and then shows up on XDA not even by the developer mind you and everyone gets excited and is flooding said dev with donations on a ROM he labels "the most unsupported ROM ever" and proceeds to let it sit due to the same reason the phone has not had any real attention all along; no RIL code.
When said dev is called on about putting something out labelled "unsupported" and then has the gall to say donate to me(which the dev or mods remove from the thread) if you want the work finished; is this acceptable behaviour?
I am not an end user who is unappreciative and expecting of a dev's work.
I do play with some of the custom stuff for fun on occasion but always come back to stock.
You can keep the simple petty rhetoric that typically ensues to yourself. I am entitled to my $600 phone and that is what I use. Not anyone's work on the forums or IRC! If I do use anything I will test for problems and report back before jumping back to stock and pass along a gesture of appreciation.
Now that I have hopefully made you understand my intentions and absolve anyone of the typical schoolyard bashing that frequents these hallowed walls, is it acceptable for a dev to whip together a ROM that is useless and collect money on it from all of the hopeful and anticipating end users that will not realize an end product?
Especially now that manufacturers are pumping out new phones at an alarming rate that a new phone will be in the shadows every six months.
Thoughts?

Just allow electronic Darwinism to take its course! If someone is taking the piss, they'll soon die out, if people use common sense and don't encourage them

Most devs that I see, Or rather use ROMS from are quite active and very supportive and NEVER even spoke anything about donation. I was happy to donate for a few of them coz it is really worth it.
I think this opinion you speak of might have been due to your ill luck or some pretty bad devs you have encountered.
I'm not saying you are wrong but I'm saying that your prespective might be due to a unlucky or bad dev (one bad apple) incident.

As far as my phone the Desire Hd is concerned, the developers are still just as helpful and enthusiastic as ever.

There is no developer like a bad or good developer, its because of them 99% of people are using roms without donating, 1 % donates to developers

I know a lot of developer who work on projects for free, but even the developers out there like to drink a beer paid from their projects
-> Donations are welcome!

Well,a developer who makes something for XDA and then actually tries to sell it is a downright asshole.Pardon the word,but it's the most accurate description I can give.
This is a community of developers,for developers to share their work.Users are more like guests,who get to use everything for free and just help developers by pointing out flaws in their work.Users enjoy developers' work and developers make their work better constantly,because they want to.No one forced them or employed them here.But then again,it's only right that we should donate to them sometimes.They donate their free time and put large efforts for what's done here,so it's a fair "exchange".But that's it.Donating is optional,as it should be and as is right.The "developers" who try to sell their work here are in the wrong place.
Generally,the better the work,the more donations they will get,so actually instead of asking for money they could just make something better than what's already available and money will come.
We aren't fools who expect everyone to selflessly give us their work in this world,but for Christ's sake,at least pretend that you're selfless!
Anyway,this is in no way an attack or rant against developers,but rather to those self-called developers who exploit the community spirit for their gains.True developers,as most here are I hope,are more than just respected here.

tolis626 said:
Well,a developer who makes something for XDA and then actually tries to sell it is a downright asshole.Pardon the word,but it's the most accurate description I can give.
This is a community of developers,for developers to share their work.Users are more like guests,who get to use everything for free and just help developers by pointing out flaws in their work.Users enjoy developers' work and developers make their work better constantly,because they want to.No one forced them or employed them here.But then again,it's only right that we should donate to them sometimes.They donate their free time and put large efforts for what's done here,so it's a fair "exchange".But that's it.Donating is optional,as it should be and as is right.The "developers" who try to sell their work here are in the wrong place.
Generally,the better the work,the more donations they will get,so actually instead of asking for money they could just make something better than what's already available and money will come.
We aren't fools who expect everyone to selflessly give us their work in this world,but for Christ's sake,at least pretend that you're selfless!
Anyway,this is in no way an attack or rant against developers,but rather to those self-called developers who exploit the community spirit for their gains.True developers,as most here are I hope,are more than just respected here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So developers on xda-developers are not allowed to sell software now? There's actually a forum dedicated to paid software, so you're wrong.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=993

Cabe24i said:
Developers should be able to sell software they created, for example; applications, scripts, hell even mods that don't include any work from someone else. In my opinion this shouldn't include ROMs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I totally agree with that.

Archer said:
I totally agree with that.
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Click to collapse
As does XDA, hence the rules at present
This is not a platform to make money from. For anyone who cares, I have made a total of £0.00 from XDA. I don't wish to make personal profit from here.
I spend large numbers of hours on the site, doing stuff behind the scenes. If I was to draw up a "bill" for the past year, it would be in the hundreds of thousands of pounds, based on the price I charge for my services.
But I wouldn't ever want to see myself as selling something here. That's not what this site is about! There's plenty of places to sell stuff. If you make your own app, fair enough. If you modify something belonging to someone else, then nope

bwheelies said:
Just curious what everyone's opinion is on this.
When I got my first android phone in 2010, a Samsung Fascinate, it seemed to be a burgeoning scene with the developers doing dev'ing for the fun of it and getting rewarded by an appreciative end user.
Fast forward nine months and I am ready for 4g so I slap down my $600 for a charge and watch a molasses like and seemingly dormant dev scene.
There is excuse after excuse as to why the scene is quiet and then there is wind of an "in development" ICS ROM. This is put forth via twitter and then shows up on XDA not even by the developer mind you and everyone gets excited and is flooding said dev with donations on a ROM he labels "the most unsupported ROM ever" and proceeds to let it sit due to the same reason the phone has not had any real attention all along; no RIL code.
When said dev is called on about putting something out labelled "unsupported" and then has the gall to say donate to me(which the dev or mods remove from the thread) if you want the work finished; is this acceptable behaviour?
I am not an end user who is unappreciative and expecting of a dev's work.
I do play with some of the custom stuff for fun on occasion but always come back to stock.
You can keep the simple petty rhetoric that typically ensues to yourself. I am entitled to my $600 phone and that is what I use. Not anyone's work on the forums or IRC! If I do use anything I will test for problems and report back before jumping back to stock and pass along a gesture of appreciation.
Now that I have hopefully made you understand my intentions and absolve anyone of the typical schoolyard bashing that frequents these hallowed walls, is it acceptable for a dev to whip together a ROM that is useless and collect money on it from all of the hopeful and anticipating end users that will not realize an end product?
Especially now that manufacturers are pumping out new phones at an alarming rate that a new phone will be in the shadows every six months.
Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My thoughts? If your main concern was dev scene, why would you get a locked down motorola?

Ok, I have been trolling here for sometime and have seen some devs who ask for donations. However, the vast majority just contribute their time and hard work for the betterment of the platform and the community as a whole.
As for slow development, I think a lot of that has to do with the phone. I have the SGS 2 and there is active development for that with a lot of great roms. My wife has the 4g Slide and the development is slightly slower. It all comes down to the popularity of the phone.

If devs make a product good enough for people to pay for then good for them. On the other hand, if they ask for donations but their software is crap then no one will buy it.
It's a free market, let them try.
It is alot of work and it requires a special skill set to do what devs do, so I can appreciate them asking for a couple bucks for their trouble.

I buy beers/coffee when i see two things..
#1 a good working Rom/ Root / hack /tweak that has a history of upgrades/work/tweaks from the chef.
# 2 the chef is active in the thread, helping others with questions/ issues etc etc..

Archer said:
So developers on xda-developers are not allowed to sell software now? There's actually a forum dedicated to paid software, so you're wrong.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=993
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Click to collapse
I agree with Cabe24i.See below.
Cabe24i said:
Developers should be able to sell software they created, for example; applications, scripts, hell even mods that don't include any work from someone else. In my opinion this shouldn't include ROMs, why? Because with the possible exception of building completely from source, you are essentially selling modifications of someone else's software. Especially when you include proprietary drivers and software. Touchscreen drivers, camera drivers, audio drivers, radio drivers and the like in many cases are proprietary and licensed to be resold only by the maker of the device. Receiving donations for development is questionable at best, demanding donations for development is basically selling software you don't have rights to sell.
I think one of the reason I've previously seen mods block these sort of attempts is because it creates a legal issue for XDA itself. Plus you have people who donated but developers wanting more and the person who donated feel cheated.
Thankfully I haven't seen a lot of this in the Evo3D forums, I have seen a lot of RESPECT THE GPL immediately after DON'T EVEN LOOK AT MY CODE when half their code is kanged from someone else's hard work. Usually though, people start getting annoyed and those roms start to die off.
Or you have the case with Chad.Goodman, where he writes decent stuff on his own and people get annoyed by that and contact beats & qualcomm all while they release 'beats' mods on their own stuff. (which still doesn't make any sense to me)
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Click to collapse
The point isn't whether they are allowed to accept money for their work.They surely should put their creations on sale.And exactly here is where I agree with you.ROMs and kernels aren't their work.As good as someone's modifications can be,it's not new code written by them entirely(except for some patches,etc).While their work is and should be rewarded,it should in no way become mandatory that we pay to use it.It should be optional as it is.It's fair for everyone that way.Those who deserve it will get paid,end of story.
Selling apps on XDA is another story,but it's also completely right to do so,as they could just sell those on the market and be done with it.But it's about applications written anew,not modified ones.Did anyone sell a modified copy of a game?I don't think so.
We should show our appreciation to developers,but they should also show us some respect(I am more than content with what's going on here on the dev side,it's XDA's ungrateful noobs that I'm mad with like most of you here).Fraud is a crime after all.

I can see both sides of that argument actually. Whilst I do think it's unreasonable for a developer to request money for merely tweaking a ROM, it's the same as a painter painting your living room. He's not made you a brand new living room from scratch. He's just painted your existing one. That's similar to a ROM tweaker.
That said, I do understand and abide by the rules - I'm not arguing them. Just playing devil's advocate.

lowandbehold said:
My thoughts? If your main concern was dev scene, why would you get a locked down motorola?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure if you are asking me. I have a Droid Charge.

F2504x4 said:
I buy beers/coffee when i see two things..
#1 a good working Rom/ Root / hack /tweak that has a history of upgrades/work/tweaks from the chef.
# 2 the chef is active in the thread, helping others with questions/ issues etc etc..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is one of the best posts I have seen on xda. Judging by this, the developer who posted a no effort ROM in a stagnant phone development scene who says donate and does nothing with the ROM is nothing but a modern day P.T. Barnum.

First of all, you don't have to donate
But I agree with OP it's not done to demand donations to finish work.
If your work is good and you support it well, possibilities for a donation are much higher.
But it is no guarantee for donations.
But isn't respect from others the best payment for your work? That's the reason I do my share for the community

Touch Button Issue HTC One S - Communication campaign "Operation Rolling Thunder"

Touch Button Issue HTC One S - Communication campaign "Operation Rolling Thunder"
Hi all,
If you ended up on this thread, it probably means that like many others, including me, you have experienced the so-called "Home button issue" on your HTC One S. To sum it up very briefly, it happens mostly when you're on EDGE and the signal is weak: what then happens is that all the sudden, your phone simulates rapid presses of the Home Button, leading to your display switching constantly between the main Home screen and the "helicopter view" showing the 7 home screens. When it happens, the buttons become useless, and you cannot use your phone anymore. Needless to say it is a really annoying matter...
As you may know, there are many threads that report the issue in many different countries, which leads to believe that hundreds if not thousands of users are having the same issue... XDA has a very complete thread on the matter, which focuses on grouping people reports, hypothetical fixes, leads, ideas, comments etc. I strongly suggest you check it out if you haven't done so yet after you're done reading this post. Here's the link:
SneakyGhost's "report/troubleshooting" thread regarding Home button issue
You will also find a link to a spreadsheet in this thread where you can write yourself in and describe your issue and its circumstances, thus helping people working on the issue to figure out a solution. Big thanks to SneakyGhost and ZoesDad for all the work! Remember to write your details in the sheet when you're through this post if you haven't done so yet. Here's the link:
SneakyGhost's spreadsheet for reporting the issue
Now, if you followed up on this issue, you will soon notice that many users have reported the problem to HTC, starting some months ago. The results were nowhere near satisfying:
No reply at all to their complaints;
Automatic emails from customer support telling people to restart or factory reset their phones, even though they had explained that they had already tried this in their mails;
Requests to send their phones in for repair. After weeks, customers would get their phones returned, with the exact same issue still present;
Emails from HTC stating that they were (finally) aware of the issue and that a patch would be released in the coming days/weeks. That was months ago, nothing has happened as of yet...
Bottom line: Nothing happened, the matter is still not solved, and we are all still stuck with devices that can stop working at any given time if the signal starts going down. Inacceptable. Time to act!
Operation Rolling Thunder
Apparently, HTC needs a little "motivation" so solve this issue, so here is my suggestion (I discussed the idea with some people on SneakyGhost's thread, link to exact page here):
In order to make ourselves heard, we need to join in a combined effort to attract attention of HTC through the media. I therefore started posting negative reviews of the HTC One S on numerous websites that review or sell the product. On each of them, I left a comment reporting this issue and advising people not to buy the phone until the matter was resolved.
...And here is where I need your help: I ask you to take a little time off and start doing the same. I will try to make it as easy and fast for you as possible.
The goal is to "spam" review and sales websites with so many negative reviews that the phone's average note will sink to the bottom. Thus, when people will check out the phone, they will see a quite good editor's note, but a very low users note. They will most probably then read users reviews and find out about the issue, which will lead them to delay their purchase or switch to another model or brand... They will talk/comment about it, and so on.
If enough people in various countries participate to the action, we will make quite some noise, and I am convinced that HTC will hear about it. Actually, my plan is to let them know asap that such an action is ongoing. I want them to be aware of this, and I believe we should regularly "invite" them to read our reviews on famous websites, and let them know that we will not stop until the patch is released. No promise of future upcoming patches will stop this action. The only way for them to stop us from spamming websites with unhappy comments will be the release of a patch that adresses the issue. Only then will we stop our action and edit our reviews/comments.
Operation Rolling Thunder: Phases
Phase One:
Leave posts/reviews/comments on famous review and/or sales websites
Send updates regularly to HTC about progress. If no patch after 1-2 weeks, proceed to phase two.
Phase Two:
Send emails to the carriers/tech supports of respective countries
Send regular updates to HTC about progress. If no patch after 1-2 weeks, proceed to phase three.
Phase Three:
Send emails to the media: bloggers, press...
Send regular updates to HTC about progress. If no patch by then... Improvise.
Now, I have already started with phase one on my own, and if you want things to change, I hereby invite you to join me in my effort to "motivate" our friends at HTC.
Remember to check out the two next posts. I wrote them to provide you with useful tools and advice, so that you can easily contribute to the action:
- Review templates in different languages
- Direct links to the product pages on famous websites for posting
- Some advice (my two cents)
Report your contributions:
After posting your reviews, don't forget to post your contribution through this form!
It will help us keep track of progress and maintain pressure on HTC!
You can check out the results at any given time in this spreadsheet!
(Many thanks to SneakyGhost for his advice and the idea of the sheet :good
Please keep this thread tidy:
Thank you for not postings rants, complaints or non-constructive comments on this thread. It is important, especially if we relay a link to this thread to the media/press at a later stage, that it remains factual. Posts are reserved for the following:
Your reports on where you posted reviews, in order to show involvement
Your suggestions on new links to websites to post reviews on
Constructive remarks.
Remember that this post is dedicated to the Home screen issue ONLY!
Don't forget to fill out the form when you are done posting your reviews! Here are the links to the form and to the spreadsheet!
Thank you in advance for your effort, may this campaign be successful... for all our sakes :highfive:

Post/review templates and advice
Below are some links to reviews/comments I wrote in different languages. Feel free to copy/paste them (or edit them, if you disagree on certain aspects: it's your review!) if you don't feel like writing them yourself.
Some advice when it comes to reviewing (if I may...):
A general note of no more than one star (less if possible) would be appropriate for this phone as long as the bug persists, don't you think?
Don't be hostile/rude... You are probably pissed by now and tired of waiting, but try to keep things civil. It will add to the credibility of this action and benefit the results. We don't want to sound like raving idiots, but rather like a determined group of people who want to make things happen...
I believe that it writing in the title of your review that this phone would deserve a better note if the issue was gone might help encourage HTC to provide a fix. Just stating the HTC One S is a **it phone will probably not encourage them so much, rather the opposite.
Please insert a link to this thread and SneakyGhost's in your reviews, so people can read about the issue and know what we are talking about. They should know that this is a legitimate effort, not some loose and unmotivated ranting...
In order to keep things fair, I plan to edit/adapt my reviews when HTC has fixed the issue. I hope you'll do the same...
Let's act like gentlemen: the phone wouldn't deserve such a bad note if it wasn't for this bug. Let's remember that when a fix removes the issue.
Here are the review templates:
- In English
- In French
- In German (I'm not so great in German, so you might want to adapt a little )
Don't forget to fill out the form when you are done posting your reviews! Here are the links to the form and to the spreadsheet!
Thanks for your help!

Links to review/sales websites
Here are some links to websites you might want to post on. Of course, you are welcome to post on other relevant places too.
Leave a comment in this thread with the links, and I'll update the list whenever I can!
Remember that some websites may have several HTC One Ses on sale. They can all be reviewed...
Some advice on speeding things up:
You'll always have to create a user on the websites you post on. Thankfully, it usually requires a username and a mail adress. No big deal, one minute tops! Facebook login works too sometimes...
This is how I do when a website has the HTC One S several times for sale (aka Amazon): I search for the HTS One S, then sort from highest price down in order to avoid cases and accessories. When the list appears, I open every HTC One S page in a new tab. I then go to the reviews page for each of them and start copy/pasting. It took me barely 10 minutes to review 20 HTC One S on an Amazon!
Don't comment on somebody else's review, make your own. That way, you can give a (1-star) note.
You may post on French post even if you're not French. Trust in my post
Here are the links. I tried to make sure you would end up on the right page (review page or list page with HTC One Ses)
English:
Cnet.com (post confirmed)
Cnet.com.au (post confirmed)
Amazon.com (post confirmed)
Amazon.co.uk (post confirmed)
GSMarena.com (post confirmed)
Techradar.com (post confirmed)
German:
Amazon.de (post confirmed)
Saturn.de (post confirmed)
CyberPort.de (post confirmed)
Pixmania.de
French:
Amazon.fr (post confirmed)
LesNumériques (post confirmed)
Clubic.com
Pixmania.fr
Darty.fr
LesMobiles (post confirmed)
FrAndroid (post confirmed)
TomsGuide.fr (post confirmed)
cDiscount
Don't forget to fill out the form when you are done posting your reviews! Here are the links to the form and to the spreadsheet!

Posts to publish on forums and gather people
Here are post templates you can use in order to rally people on other forums to join this action/thread. Don't forget to leave posts in video comments too
Post Template (EN)
Post Template (FR)
Post Template (DE) (I'm not so great in German, so you might want to adapt a little )
Help me spread the word. Thank you!

Right mate. That'll be a rush of people showing up I hope.
From the posts surfacing in my thread now I get the feeling that some where drawn here from sales sites already.
I haven't gotten to read through your reviews yet so forgive my ignorance: have you thought of dropping a link to this xda thread and/or mine in your reviews?
One thing I deem of major importance is making the spreadsheet reflect a true picture of the situation out there. That'll be only possible if we reach as many people as possible. So I think having the sheet linked to the product directly it would get us closer to that goal. At last 430 potential reviewers can spread it quite far and fast I guess.
Power to the masses!
Somehow I really like mobilizing a lit of people in a short time.
Have you ever heard of avaaz.org? They've gotten the most brilliant campaigning concept I know of. They managed to get a million signatures in 24h for some campaigns...
Feel the Viper!

Sneakyghost said:
I haven't gotten to read through your reviews yet so forgive my ignorance: have you thought of dropping a link to this xda thread and/or mine in your reviews?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good point. Not always. I urged people to google the issue, but no direct links. Had done most of the reviewing before getting active here. I ll update my templates so the links are in there. Thanks.
Sneakyghost said:
One thing I deem of major importance is making the spreadsheet reflect a true picture of the situation out there. That'll be only possible if we reach as many people as possible. So I think having the sheet linked to the product directly it would get us closer to that goal. At last 430 potential reviewers can spread it quite far and fast I guess.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed. How do you suggest we achieve this? I was planning on PMing those who left their usernames in your sheet. Do you have a quicker solution?
Sneakyghost said:
Somehow I really like mobilizing a lit of people in a short time.
Have you ever heard of avaaz.org? They've gotten the most brilliant campaigning concept I know of. They managed to get a million signatures in 24h for some campaigns...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, heard about them. I think we can start as planned, and if we need some help because things aren't going fast enough, we could find some inspiration/help over there. Yet I think that even a few hundred people can achieve a lot, if they do the posting properly. As I said earlier, most product pages only have maybe a dozen reviews, so our posts will definitely tilt the balance.

Sneakyghost said:
I haven't gotten to read through your reviews yet so forgive my ignorance: have you thought of dropping a link to this xda thread and/or mine in your reviews?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Done! Please remember to set up a little description of this thread and big fat link leading here on your first post, will you?
Thanks!

I have not experienced the problem but I'm all in for this
Sent from my HTC One S using xda app-developers app

I appreciate your willingness to help us out, I really do, but I will have to ask you to stand down if you haven't experienced the home screen issue yet. I want ONLY people who really have this problem to post about it, or at least through this action/thread.
Why? Well, because if others do so, it undermines credibility. I want honest statements on these review websites, from people who have seen this bug first hand.
That's my official point of view on the matter. Of course, I cannot stop you from helping us anyway
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda app-developers app

I have now left comments on most videos about this phone I could come across: reviews, but also problem reports etc.
I might have forgotten some: you are welcome to help me out
Remember: TOGETHER, WE ARE LEGION!
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda app-developers app

I'm sorry but is this really a real issue? My whole family (not including baby brother) has the oneS were all rooted and on different ROMs(my sister just prefers stock though) and none of us have had this problem... not even once. I truly believe it is not fair for people to write bad reviews on phones because of one issue a select few are having... and ones has 4g why are you using edge? Leave a one star rating? How about you get a new phone and leave this beauty to us?
Sent from my HTC One S using xda app-developers app

I have two devices and one is ok.
I think there's people though who got a return from service with a new phone 4 times and the issue is still there. Look over at the Vodafone UK forums.
Since the facts show that it is spread over all production batches and all software variants and also even happens on the 850/1900mhz band, although far less frequent, we came to believe that this issue can theoretically affect every unit.
Those who do not suffer it are considered lucky ones for now.
I am aware that this is all looking very grim but I'm sure it really isn't. Just HTC's response is dark and grim.
It's mainly about putting more pressure on HTC since they have fobbed us of since basically April now.
I am very very sorry if this concerns you as happy user. Basically the idea for such a campaign already came up at around the end of July when I and zoesdad where discussing options but we opted to hold off such actions and also discourage others from doing so out of fairness reasons.
We have now reached a span of six month nearly consisting of nothing but empty promises and denial. It is just enough now.
Also keep in mind that we will change the reviews and take back everything we can as soon as HTC commits to the issue in the shape of a real fix.
Thank you for your understanding.
[EDIT]
Gibarian,
I have now begun to post some reviews (managed to cover cnet) but my lunchbreak is short...
I would like to edit your german template, impressive german you got there (where do you come from mate?), but i would like to take out a few minor glitches, makes it sound a little smoother then. Do you mind?
Here's the edit. Take it or leave it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pJUpTGLz8PNJkwqwRg1IhardJys172wwyv3sMp5Zvh4/edit

Roundtableprez said:
I'm sorry but is this really a real issue? My whole family (not including baby brother) has the oneS were all rooted and on different ROMs(my sister just prefers stock though) and none of us have had this problem... not even once. I truly believe it is not fair for people to write bad reviews on phones because of one issue a select few are having... and ones has 4g why are you using edge? Leave a one star rating? How about you get a new phone and leave this beauty to us?
Sent from my HTC One S using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I couldn't agree more on SneakyGhost's reply on your post. I share this 100%
I'm really happy for you, I just wish all of us would have the same things to report, trust me.
I haven't enjoyed spending half my day and my whole night all the way to 5am writing this thread, the reviews, the posts, the sheets and forms, the advices, the research and all the posting. I would have loved to just sit back in my garden and toy with my phone (which is a beauty, no argument there!) Unfortunately I can't, because of this issue. I had it no later than today when using the GPS, which would just disappear and the screen would go crazy. No way to rely on it...
As SneakyGhost pointed out, we unfortunate ones feel neglected and are disappointed by HTC's lack of action. Thus the action.
Remember this:
- We plan to adjust our reviews as soon as the bug has been mended
- We clearly point out that the bad review is due to this bug
- We urge people to remain civil
You might want to read what I replied to maek_it_happen a few posts higher, and who was offering to help even if he did not have the issue (thanks again): we do not encourage this, because we want our claim to be justified and forwarded only by people who suffer from this issue. I believe that is fair, no?
And about using 4G instead of EDGE: Man, don't you think I would do so if I could? I don't choose to connect to the slowest network available. Maybe I do so because there's nothing else around... Btw, the technical sheet of our phone clearly states that is compatible to EDGE. So...
Enjoy your phone, and please wish for all of us here to be able to do the same pretty soon
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda app-developers app

Sneakyghost said:
Gibarian,
I have now begun to post some reviews (managed to cover cnet) but my lunchbreak is short...
I would like to edit your german template, impressive german you got there (where do you come from mate?), but i would like to take out a few minor glitches, makes it sound a little smoother then. Do you mind?
Here's the edit. Take it or leave it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pJUpTGLz8PNJkwqwRg1IhardJys172wwyv3sMp5Zvh4/edit
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks SneakyGhost. You work on sundays? Oh man, sorry to hear that...
Check out my profile: I'm from Luxembourg. Puts me on the crossroads between France, Germany and Belgium. And my wife is swedish, so English is the way to go at home
I will insert your template: I'm sure it's better than mine
I'll PM you to grant you admin rights to all the documents: it will make things easier.
CU!
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda app-developers app

Sneakyghost said:
Gibarian,
I have now begun to post some reviews (managed to cover cnet) but my lunchbreak is short...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice. Cheers! Hopefully others will follow your lead
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda app-developers app

Sneakyghost said:
I have two devices and one is ok.
I think there's people though who got a return from service with a new phone 4 times and the issue is still there. Look over at the Vodafone UK forums.
Since the facts show that it is spread over all production batches and all software variants and also even happens on the 850/1900mhz band, although far less frequent, we came to believe that this issue can theoretically affect every unit.
Those who do not suffer it are considered lucky ones for now.
I am aware that this is all looking very grim but I'm sure it really isn't. Just HTC's response is dark and grim.
It's mainly about putting more pressure on HTC since they have fobbed us of since basically April now.
I am very very sorry if this concerns you as happy user. Basically the idea for such a campaign already came up at around the end of July when I and zoesdad where discussing options but we opted to hold off such actions and also discourage others from doing so out of fairness reasons.
We have now reached a span of six month nearly consisting of nothing but empty promises and denial. It is just enough now.
Also keep in mind that we will change the reviews and take back everything we can as soon as HTC commits to the issue in the shape of a real fix.
Thank you for your understanding.
[EDIT]
Gibarian,
I have now begun to post some reviews (managed to cover cnet) but my lunchbreak is short...
I would like to edit your german template, impressive german you got there (where do you come from mate?), but i would like to take out a few minor glitches, makes it sound a little smoother then. Do you mind?
Here's the edit. Take it or leave it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pJUpTGLz8PNJkwqwRg1IhardJys172wwyv3sMp5Zvh4/edit
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You got promises from HTC? Truth full though they support their phones better then most my sidekick never received an update from Samsung. My droid didn't from Motorola. Holy**** my HTC oneS did though. Give it some time you can't expect to fix an edge data problem when everyone uses 3g/4g right away lol. Anyways I'll go back to my thread as to not clutter your guys thread we can argue about the ethics there if you like.
Sent from my HTC One S using xda app-developers app

Trust me, no real harm done, this is a mere try to threaten a giant. It will probably just show that we are serious but never bring down the sales figures. That is a dream. But a dream worth the while. And mate, it might help us at the end of the day.
HTC promises fixes since two month at least, has released 3 updates (one of them just being a voda) of which each manipulated the issue in a slightly different way and looking at it in sequence gives the impression of HTC actually testing a fix on us. Which is so not right. We are not getting paid as beta testers.
There is one user on a German forum claiming he got an ETA for the final fix, named the 8th of October. I think thats just bullsh from either him or the agent he spoke to. Anyhow: if there is such a thing as an ETA, its just so unfair to not let us know and let us fry in our pains here.
I think many of us would willingly test stuff out and help to get this resolved asap but its just like we are treated like idiots since month. It just makes me feel so stupid and i ask myself why do i do all this data collection, analyzing, thinking about solutions, chatting with people to try desperate measures ( Tecardo already nearly bricked his unit trying to figure out a fix on his own)...
Its just such an EFFIN pain!
It needs to go away.
My phone resorted to locked buttons variant of the issue all freakin day today! kept unlocking it so i could - maybe - use it for a few seconds until the buttons locked up again...
And honestly, i am short of giving up, selling it on ebay and buying a HOX instead on Ebay Local markets every day. Every Day i keep thinking about this but i wont for two reasons: i have some honor left and i wont sell THIS POS to anyone in that state. The other reason: there is no other phone i would feel comfortable with so much. The HOX gets close but honestly, its made from plastic and its not nearly as nice. The phone is too big too.

This whole campaign sounds like a bad idea. Using threats to get your way is not the proper way to get people to listen. All the and reviews will do is discouraged people from buying the one s and if this happens HTC will offer less support. Why spoil the dozen if one egg is bad
Sent from my HTC One S using xda premium

why keep a dozen bad eggs if only one is good?
And: we think we don't threaten. We rather believe we haven been overly fair to a company that is not fair to us. We have all kept very very quiet. Most have not rated the phone or reviewed it yet because most expect this to not hit the majority and most did not take action to not spoil the dozen. We have quietly dealt with HTC support. But now it becomes apparent more and more that HTC support just does nothing, zip, nada. It is a real joke. Not a funny one though. So what this is, is that we are no longer wanting to be quiet. We want everyone else to know that there is problems with these phones. Potential ones. It is not just all candy.
and believe me, the matter has been discussed between us up and down the argument ladder since beginning of august. I said that already. It will NOT permanently damage sales. Naming it a bad idea means you believe in it having more effect than we do.
Trust me, it will NOT have such a major impact. We will never manage to rate it down on all relevant sites. All that will happen is a little too much salt in the pie.
It will draw attention to the problem. Not more. And once HTC acts correctly, the reviews will be all praise and hallelujah.
No whining. We had enough mercy. This should have been sorted at least 3 month ago. The issue became apparent in April. Now we have september. Which is closing in on october. So that makes it getting close to 2 quarters of a year. I and many others reckon one quarter to fix a very serious issue that hits hundreds of people more than adequate.
We don't even have near the resources HTC has but in the same 5 and a half month we got very near the source of the problem. The only thing that keeps a few people from finally fixing it is the goddamn Security HTC put on the phones.
So, ironically, we can't even fix it ourselves even though we probably could because HTC doesn't allow us too.
How would you feel in that situation? I think we act very rational, very well discussed and very controlled.
This will NOT damage anyone.
Please have trust.

Fredfly said:
This whole campaign sounds like a bad idea. Using threats to get your way is not the proper way to get people to listen. All the and reviews will do is discouraged people from buying the one s and if this happens HTC will offer less support. Why spoil the dozen if one egg is bad
Sent from my HTC One S using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let me make a wild guess here: I am willing to bet that you don't have this issue. Am I right? So you don't have the bad egg. Now imagine you did...
Because if you did, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't say this, especially after having written to HTC for support and gotten an automatic reply, or none at all, or having returned your phone and waited just to end up with the same result etc etc.
Again: if your phone works perfectly, congratulations! I wish I was in your shoes. But I'm not, and neither are many others. So, after having tried every other way, we end up here. If you have a better suggestion, I will gladly take it. Maybe exchange your phone for mine, how about that?
Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything here. Those who want to take part in the action probably have good reason to, because spending time creating user accounts and posting on websites is not that fun. Trust me, I know Yet if people do it, it means that they have a pretty strong motivation to do so, and no other choice.
Bottom line: I am looking forward to enjoying my One S fully, like you probably do, when this issue is fixed. But I will do what it takes to get there!
If you cannot understand this, fair enough. I really hope you won't have to share my experience.
Live long and prosper!

[Tributarius] How XDA has inspired you ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°

Over the past year, I've seen many people making mention of how XDA has helped them make advancements in their careers/lives.
This thread is dedicated to all people and their stories. Please invite others, to tell their story.
Please ponder, then offer some insight to the following:
Who was your biggest influence, in the way of Android?
What are you doing now, since XDA-Developers and Android have opened your eyes to new opportunities?
When did you decide, "it's time to make a go of this"
Where do you feel Android can take you?
For the "die hard" in the crowd Can you recall a time without XDA? (must put thinking cap on)

TonyStark said:
Over the past year, I've seen many people making mention of how XDA has helped them make advancements in their careers.
This thread is dedicated to those people and their stories.
What progression have you made since you joined XDA.
Please anser with the following:
Who was your biggest influence
What have you done, since your influence has been clarified
When did you decide, "it's time to make a career of this"s
Where do you feel this can take you
Why this one is up to you because I say, why ask why
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly, Mr. Stark, you were my biggest influence. When I first joined XDA I was a raging nOOb. I created posts that were way out of place and not thought out. You were my first contact with a moderator. You gave me guidance and pointed me in the proper direction. Thank you.
Since going in that direction, I developed a love for this community and the talented people within. I had such admiration for the developers, the recognized contributors, the themers, the modders and all of the administration. I have grown as a user and now I am working to give back to the community that has given me so much knowledge. I am working towards becoming a recognized contributor as we speak.
I realized it was time to make a career out of this when 1) an excellent opportunity arose. And 2) when I realized how much joy and satisfaction I get out of helping people. Also, how much passion and enthusiasm I have for technology.
I feel that I have an excellent opportunity now, to possibly be a manager or maybe someday an owner of a repair facility, dedicated to mobile technologies.
Again, I have so much passion for everything about technology, especially Android. I am still working to learn how to develop applications, and now I have the opportunity to learn how to fix the hardware as well. XDA, in my opinion, is the sole reason why my passion sprouted, grew, and blossomed. This community is so unique and diverse. There have been many other people here that have inspired me, @Magnum_Enforcer @Captain_Throwback @BD619 @rootSU @simms22 are just a few of the many, many wonderful and talented people within this community. Many thanks to them and the rest of you.

[No message]

@jcase thank you so much for sharing that story! Without the work you've done, nothing I've ever done, in my time here, would have been possible. So many thanks to you!

Who is IAmTheOneTheyCallNeo?
Where to begin? ... I'm going to take all your questions and combine them into a really, long, TL/DR worthy post mmmk? thnx.
I certainly haven't advanced into a career from my experience and participation with XDA. However, I have definitely made a hobby and place for myself here and it all started back in the day (which was a Wednesday by the way).
I had finally upgraded my and the wife's devices to a "smart" phone. We were no longer part of the dumb phone crowd anymore so it was time to grow up.
She had a Droid Eris, and I the amazing Droid Incredible. Although the phone was cool and visually appealing, I felt it was lacking something.. It wasn't as fast as I wanted. In my mind, you should be able to press a button and BAM, you're there. So I began looking on-line for ways to make the device faster.
I started out by visiting the different threads for my device and gained an understanding for what rooting a phone means and how one goes about doing it and what SuperUser is for, etc.
After a few scared posts to test the public forum waters, I through bit lip achieed my first root. I thenk joined the rom flashing community jumping from rom to rom trying to find the best one for myself. This carried on for a bit.
At some point, I decided that I wanted to take the stock rom, and cater it to my specific needs and desires instead of flashing other people's roms. I started using titanium backup to freeze or remove apps because I wanted my rooted stock rom to be debloated. Through a grueling process of trial and error on every file, I found what breaks when what is removed and documented it on paper.
Once I was comfortable and familiar with what each apk file did (or didn't do if removed) I moved on to modifying them directly through the rom zip file on my computer with 7zip. This opened up a new world of hurt because now I was exposed to libs, drivers, audio files, xmls, docs, etc. So that took a long time opening things up and trying to understand what they did. At one point it was a brain overload and I almost gave up interest because it was just too much.
One day, I learned how to change lock screen unlock rings and how changing the pngs can change the image and I began learning what images were called on when what gets pressed or moved on the screen. I was fairly decent with photoshop and offered my services in a thread talking about lock rings. Another XDA member requested I modify a TRON disc to be his lock ring which was coincidental as that was the exact thing I wanted to do to mine! I soon became friends with XDA member (My first buddy on XDA) @synisterwolf and we teamed up in our own HTC Incredible thread (or Rezound.. I actually forget which device we started all this on) making built to order lockscreen rings for people. That was a big hit and we started moving into some other theme type elements like changing the blue navigation chevron in maps to spaceships or tron cycles, etc.
Taking a step into the theme world however meant that I would need to learn how to decompile and recompile apks so I began my learning process in that. To my dismay, a decompiled apk (down to smalli) is incredibly full of stuff I had not even imagined and to this day I still have issues understanding most of it. I did however manage to change smalli in my code, line for line, from a different device to my Rezound which succeeded in giving me the first 5-point AOSP lock system which at the time, wasn't available to the device.
Learning later to make changes in the res and res/values folder taught me how to theme system level elements to the apks and what they did in rom.
I also did a lot of internet searching on how to make roms faster and came up with all kinds of build.prop edits or files you can add into the rom and I experimented a lot.
At one point, I took notice of a talented individual name @chad0989, who together with another talented member @tiny4579 worked on advancements to roms and a kernel which included a voltage modifying app titled Incredikernel. This app (if kernel permitted) allowed you to undervolt each frequency voltage value in an effort to improve rom performance, or save on battery. Now, Chad had his own custom flashable voltage presets that ranged from certain levels to most extreme but I felt the extreme could go a little further. So what I did was Lock my phone at each possible frequency (both min and max) and under as much heavy load as I could put it under, modified down the voltage value just 1 step above what would cause the phone to lock. I spent hours forcing my phone to ride just 1 frequency at a time and placing it under major load just so I can get the lowest possible minimum values. When I was done, it was completely stable and far below what I had imagined. I shared the modified values with Chad and everyone else interested.
I finally came to a point in my android fun where I wanted to share with the public a stock sense rom that I'd personally modified for myself to what I felt was best suited for performance and battery with as little bloat as possible.
I soon came to find out however that I would have to come up with my own files without using files from other individuals so I couldn't just go out and ask somebody for their stock base to use...
Thus, I was lead by someone to the DSIXDA Kitchen by XDA Developer @dsixda. I found out through some friends that you could take the Official RUU for your device and run it through this "kitchen". The kitchen would then decrypt it, deodex it, generate a manifest, and an updater script for you! It was amazing. For such a noob like myself, this was gold.
The learning curve with the kitchen if you've never used it takes time. It forced me to have to fully understand adb which also required me to learn about having the have the latest android tools and sdk. I also inevitably found out that I needed the appropriate java on my pc to make everything work (this includes decompiling and recompiling stuff too). Trying to get the kitchen set up and learning how to use it was frustrating for me at first, but I eventually got there.
After I had what I felt was officially mine to distribute, I used all those small skills I'd acquired to date and with the help of questions being answered by others who'd released roms, I released my first Sense rom (for the HTC Rezound) and called it NeoMAX.
At this time however, I wasn't too confident about myself and was afraid I'd remove stuff people need so I left a lot of things in to keep people happy. The rom however was a big hit for the device.
Over time I gained some guts about me and "took it to the next level" and modified NeoMAX in a way that I personally felt a rom should be for best performance and battery life and released ADRENALINE which was completely debloated and became the smallest sense rom available (which was apparently a big deal for a device with little memory). People loved it.
I then had a moment where I went crazy with it all and released two more roms similar to ADRENALINE only this time they were "De-Sensed" roms in which I tried to make them as close to AOSP as possible. "Simplistic" was the sense-free version of NeoMAX and Injection was the sense-free version of ADRENALINE.
So now I had 4 roms and felt everyone was waiting for the next big thing.
Chad at one point however, broke the ice and got a working AOSP rom for the HTC Rezound which I'd never run on any device before. I'm not sure if any of you have ever had the Rezound before but even running my fastest rom at the time, it was nothing in comparison to AOSP.
I ran AOSP for the first time and was blown away at home fast it was in comparison to Sense and I soon became a strict AOSP follower after that.
I wanted to release my own AOSP rom but learned that I would have to learn how to compile code from source in order to have my own and at the time, I knew absolutely nothing about linux. I was a born Windows user and had never touched linux.
So I had a crash course with my buddy PonsAsinorem and he mentored me for some time in hopes that I would take over and maintain his CyanogenMod project but it was too much for me to handle at the time. I literally had headaches trying to understand any of what he was trying to teach me. Kinda like when you get a new job and the first day, you're blown away by all the stuff you need to learn.
Some time later another friend of mine @mbobino helped me to figure out how to set up a build environment with java and toolchains and walked me through to my first rom compile of CyanogenMod.
Not wanting to release a stock AOSP rom though, I soon learned that, like smalli in Sense, you could modify the source code to add or change things in the rom. Not being a code pioneer, I learned of a huge pool of "cherry-picks" by others more knowledgeable than I that you could look through and drop into your work. All I had to do was walk the custom code isles and cherry pick all the cool features I wanted!
So I had a huge page of cherry-picks and learned how to pull them. Unfortunately, I soon found out that you couldn't just simply pull everything in and expect them all to play nicely... Especially if one pick modifies the same files of another and that second pick assumes the file being changed was unmodified.. This forced me to have to understand how the changes work and I had to learn what needed to be "fixed" in order for all my changes to work together.
I did a lot of growing up with aosp fixing merge/cherry pick errors and trying to fix compiler errors as well. It was no quick process and took me nearly a year to gain a full understanding of how to do it with minimal effort.
I stayed in the AOSP game for the duration of my influence on the Rezound device. I released roms based off of CM, PAC, and AOKP and made many more friends like @apophis9283, @brenuga, @bunchies, @dmeadows013, @Flyhalf205, @Hanger84, @kkozma, @localceleb, @Miss Dragon, @red3razor, @REV3NT3CH, @shrike1978, @Sirknifealot, @Snuzzo, @TheBr0ken, @usagi-pire, @wildstang83, and @XRaptor29. I was even the first at one point to get either PAC or AOKP working on one of the new android platforms for the device.
At some point I was nominated for Recognized Contributor, which made me more proud to be a member of XDA. I can't remember who it was who nominated me at the time, but thank you again.
I soon found out that you could modify build flags for rom opimization on system level and read through a fat GNU page listing all the possible build flags you could use. I did my best to learn (or understand for that matter) what flags I'd want to use and how to add them in and what they broke if used (like using a compiler flag for thumb flags at -O3 broke Camera Viewfinder on screen for the Rezound).
After learning compiler flags I began learning toolchains and got into the whole Linaro and SaberMod chains game. At one point, not knowing any better, I forked SaberMod toolchains over to my github and renamed them Linaro
I was approached later that night through hangouts by the creator of the chains @sparksco which was something like "Hey.. You forked my toolchain and called it Linaro.. It's not Linaro dude" lol. I got to know this developer over time and he helped me a lot with understanding how toolchains worked and the compiler flags I was new at. People who knew of him referred to him as the "toolchain god" so it was good for me to learn from him (even if he didn't want to be a teacher at the time ).
At some point I got frustrated with having to modify a ton of things every time you wanted to change a chain though. I found that a certain tolchain may work best for kernel but another worked best for rom so I wanted to use two separate chains. Following a similar example by another dev, I created what's known as the GCC FREEDOM initiative (which I'm proud to say many rom teams use and still use today). As a matter of fact, sparksco has continued to improve on the initiative and continues to improve and update it.
I soon noticed that people began writing articles about my work on other Android Forums and I seized that opportunity to apply for Recognized Developer and got it.
I then spent my time mentoring other potentials (many of whom are now XDA Developers or Recognized Contributors) teaching them how to build and diagnose problems, theme stuff, etc. This kept me sharp and I also learned a few things from each of them as well as they learned things along the way that I had missed. I gained rapport with many of them and the android community and we all helped each other out when there were issues. This, in my opinion, is what android should be about.
To this day I'm still learning from others who have been in longer and are more knowledgeable than I. Github was no walk in the park to learn and I still struggle with it from time to time. In fact, there was a time Chad had mentioned that Github was harder to learn than android.. I still agree with that statement.
For a few months, my friends wildstang and tonystark kept nudging me to apply for Forum Moderator. They told me I had what it takes to be a mod for XDA, so finally I applied (not really expecting anything and half interested). However, once I received word several months later that I'd made "The Final Cut", I yearned for the position lol. I soon after became mod, and have built up friendships with many of them over time. It truly is like a family and we work together to ensure that XDA remains a peaceful place where Android Enthusiasts can come and enjoy sharing their works, ideas, and conversations with Android.
One day I finally purchased my HTC One Max (at the constant heckling of my close friend Flyhalf205 with promises of ruling the galaxy and stuff), I fell back in love with HTC Sense. He told me he would win me back over to Sense and although I told him it wasn't possible, it happened. I realized that my love for AOSP was strictly due to the fact that it made the device fast and now it no longer mattered.
I finished out the Rezound with my signature rom "TACHYON" which I could boast was the fastest rom for the device to date, and left (might still be).
Once on the Max, I realized a freedom I hadn't felt since the HTC Incredible days.. I was just a device owner. Very few people knew who I was on the Max. I was no longer stressed about pushing roms to the public or fixing aosp builds or helping others with their problems. It was then that I found out that I was completely burnt out and almost left android development for good.
One day, for myself only, I took it back to the beginning and went with Adrenaline again only this time, I applied all my accumulated knowledge to that point to make it something much more special. I learned through a friend @[email protected] how to theme the SystemUI and create my own themes in the built in theme chooser which I surprisingly liked more than doing roms I liked it so much that I did 33 themes which may seem excessive to many, however I like options. After Flyhalf hounded me for months to release the rom, I finally did.
I stayed on the Max for maybe 6 months and my friend @dottat was generous enough to gift me with a htc m8.
I have been on the M8 now for maybe half a year and it's been fabulous. I had intentions of releasing so many roms and cool things but in the end, I only released a single ADRENALINE rom, which I'm ok with.
I actually had every intention to stay on the M8 through the middle of 2016 as my contract wouldn't be eligible for an upgrade until that time. However, through the generous efforts of my very own HTC USA Moderator team, I came to own a HTC One m9 as of today Thank you guys for that :good::highfive:
Long story short, there is not just 1 person who has made an influence on me here. It is through the efforts of several people, whether intentional or not, that I am where I am today..
I came here as a troll, looking for fun, and found a home.
Love you guys,
-Neo

ΠΣΘ said:
Some time later another friend of mine @mbobino helped me to figure out how to set up a build environment with java and toolchains and walked me through to my first rom compile of CyanogenMod.
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You mean I get my own line in your autobiography?!?!? Wow... makes me miss this place. Maybe I should come back and start down this rabbit hole again.

What a tough thread. How can you put so much influence into a single post? Maybe I should just take the next 3 posts and put Reserved in them for later use.
It is really hard to say who is/was my biggest influence on the site, as I have interacted with so many people over the past 4.5 years. I would have to say that I have a freakish memory and if I have ever talked or interacted with you and you have not changed your UserName, I will remember who you are and most of the time what we talked about. This is what makes it so hard to pinpoint anyone person or even people. I'm not a Developer, Themer or even a hacker that some of the above and I am sure below posters are. I can hold my own in all of those realms, but anyone of you can code circles around me. What I do consider myself is that I am a person who is cut from the same cloth as most of the Users on this site. With that being said, I do have a soft spot for the Users on this site. We have all been in Panic Mode when we got into a bootloop and didn't know how to get out. Or flashed some Mod and forgot to Nand beforehand. There is no denying it, that sucks.
When I first came to XDA, I was looking for a simple function called Root. Back then, when you searched for Root, most of the things that came up in le Goog's page were relevant to Jailbreaks and iOS. Android was a baby and I was tasting the sweet flavor of Éclair at the time. This was before Froyo and the Apps2SD, so we had 128mb of /system and 128mb of /data which filled up really, really fast. I needed to be able to install some more apps at the time (that were mostly junk apps, but I didn't know any better then) and the phone just couldn't hold it. I still remember the beads of sweat as the pooled up on my neck when I ran my first -sh command. It almost worked, but failed and I had to restore back to a stock.sbf (it was a Motorola XT720). You live and you learn, I guess. Looking around, trying to figure out how to do all this I came across the OT section (specifically the Off-Topic: Image Thread). This was where I first came in contact with a few Mods and some really cool Users. To this day, I still interact with many of them and look to some of them as true friends.
That phone borked and I got a SGS1/Vibrant and started to learn the Samsung eco-system. I met a group of Devs and testers in there and started contributing where I could. This went on for about a year, which is like an eon in internet time. There was a kerfuffle where AOKP had left the site and moved to Rootz and many of those guys who came to be my friends, left XDA. I stayed and blended my posts between both sites. Some of them came back and some didn't, but I am still in contact with many of them daily, even so much as a few minutes ago. We have seen births, deaths, marriages starting and ending, good times and bad, but we always know where we met and keep that as a foundation of our friendships.
I've met several people from the site IRL, talked to some on the phone, sent devices/products to their home addresses and have even had to Infract one. This bodes to what I do on this site and I take it very seriously. Many Users and FSMs alike know that I am brutally honest and I always will be. When I am wrong, I admit it. When I am right, I don't pound it in your face. This isn't something that I generally state in public on-site, so if you have every interacted with me, then you'd know that I speak the truth. It isn't because I have some power trip, it's because that was the way I was raised and the way I raise my own kids.
Honesty and Integrity first. As long as you have those, your word is your oath.
With that being said, I don't work in Android or tech, but I have applied many of the attributes that I have gained on-site into my everyday dealings with personnel and management. I employ the same honesty on-site that I do off-site and if anything, that is what XDA's biggest influence is for me. I only hope that the way that I interact with Devs and Users on-site will transfer to the ways that they help/post/work/...with others.
Who was your biggest influence
Every person that I interact with or even simply read their posts.
What are you doing now, since XDA has opened your eyes to new opportunities
Living the dream
When did you decide, "it's time to make a go of this"
Join Date: 17th November 2010
Where do you feel this can take you
To the moon, Alice. To the moon.

Perhaps I have no business posting here, as I'm no developer, but I feel my career has certainly been improved/inspired by XDA.
I was first promoted at work and had a basic cell phone on my company's business account. I then asked my boss if I could purchase my own smartphone, if I could activate it on our business account, which he approved.
I went with a Blackberry 7130E that I purchased used. I moved to Curve, then the Storm and Storm 2 phones and liked the touchscreens vs. the "hard" keyboards. I was soured on iPhones due to my dislike for Apple. (I have worked in IT for the better part of 18 years, and most of that was Microsoft and Linux stuff, so I had to be anti-Apple, lol) so naturally the choice was either Windows Mobile (at the time) or Android... Android had more choices and was sort of just up-and-coming at the time, so I decided on a Motorola Droid X... Slowly but surely, more people at my company started getting Smartphones, and I became the resident "expert" on tech support for them. As a result, I was given account management access for our VZW Business account. I transitioned roles within my company (less direct IT work, more "business operations" work), and I was made a SPOC for our VZW account.
I was never much of a programmer, and my Linux knowledge has waned, so I wasn't going to be much help as a Dev. I was able to offer support and help to the Devs though... file hosting, offering to lend my devices (since it didn't matter if my phone was bricked--I'd just get a new one!), or just being a glorified cheerleader.
TonyStark said:
Who was your biggest influence
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Click to collapse
Starting out, I worked a lot with @dhemke17 as he did Dev work on the Incredible 2 (I believe)... He tried to incorporate some of my suggestions on his ROM and I also gave him File Hosting for mirroring of his files. Almost all of the people I've communicated with on XDA have been overwhelmingly awesome, both in public threads and PMs. @jcase and his team have impressed/inspired me with their ability to get things done on HTC devices, @ΠΣΘ reached out to me not so long ago and we've hit it off pretty well (if I say so myself)--yet another "grassroots" guy that just loves interacting with fellow smartphone enthusiasts. I know I'm probably missing a lot of others, but honestly it's tough to differentiate with all of the acquaintances I've made over the years.
What are you doing now, since XDA has opened your eyes to new opportunities
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I'm managing my company's Cell phone plan(s). I help out co-workers if they are having issues with their phones (yes, even iPhones). I feel like I've been given a lot more responsibility and been able to influence my boss and co-workers, fueled by my thirst for knowledge of all things smartphones.
When did you decide, "it's time to make a go of this"
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Click to collapse
Well, in regard to my becoming a SPOC, it was a natural progression. I was helping out so many people with their phone issues, my superiors recognized it was a natural fit. The silver lining was that I was getting burnt out in my previous role and welcomed the change--I am now relatively stress-free and loving my job.
Where do you feel this can take you
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In talking to @ΠΣΘ and others, I may find it interesting to learn more about being a Dev. I know I love flashing custom ROMs and gain knowledge from this community each and every day. If I do decide to make a go of it, if nothing else I have something that I could do if my current career path leads me astray.

WorldOfJohnboy said:
Perhaps I have no business posting here, as I'm no developer, but I feel my career has certainly been improved/inspired by XDA.
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Click to collapse
On the contrary, this is what we all want to see mate:good:
You and everyone that shares their story, are the core of what makes XDA great
We all are, what makes XDA Family:good:

Thank you all for sharing these stories. The amount of inspiration I feel, is overwhelming. It's comforting to know that these "strange" desires I have, in regards to all things Android, are echoed so loudly amongst this community. I truly feel like I'm at home here.

Wow, reading these impressive story`s here definately proves that passion and perseverense does make a difference and can change someones life.
I`am by all means not a developer or even working as a phone/pc/it professsional but just a enthousiast who likes to tinker with phones. Started as a `noob` and as i steadily gained knowledge by reading and trying i assisted other users to solve their problems regarding rooting, flashing, mods etc etc. I enjoy it very much andhelping with other users issues also makes me better too imo.
Who was your biggest influence
My biggest influence are all the motivated and willing users that like to help others without beeing/becoming sarcastic or condescending. One person specificaly i`d like to mention is @malybru for his help and beeing an inspiration, but there are so many good people here and i can`t mention them all but i owe you all of you my gratitude.
What are you doing now, since XDA has opened your eyes to new opportunities
Still the same proffesion which i love.
When did you decide, "it's time to make a go of this"
Joined XDA in 2010
Where do you feel this can take you
To the poorhouse as i frequently sell my phone and buy a newer device

This is a wonderful forum and has potential for anyone. It might not always connect to a career, but the fact we are here reading shows our interest. I love that almost any issue is solvable if you search the boards. I have been helped so much here and hope I have helped others. My wife just got a LG G2 and I had no clue how that worked, a quick hop over to the forum and all was answered (only a few questions I had). A nice guy over there even shared his rom with me, which was great. I have done a little building, but I am still a novice. I do know all I need to get better is readily available here. Having a baby, studying a post grad cert, and working have kind of got in the way.

Who was your biggest influence?
The people who said, "Read more. Use the search function." or said, "."
What are you doing now, since XDA has opened your eyes to new opportunities?
Use mobile tech in my daily life. Use it to solve problems, be more efficient and it's a great hobby.
When did you decide, "it's time to make a go of this"?
Just after I learned how to flash my Blackjack SCH-M450. God, I just found my first post as koe1974 from 2007!
Where do you feel this can take you?
To infinity and beyond!

Oh this is gonna take me a while, been on here since 2008 but joined 2009. So many influences and friends made....
I'll be back lol

Been here since 2011.
Learned how to root my n7000 banger, install Linux, compile and not ask idiotic questions (Google is your friend).
Learned it's best to stick to G+ and stay away from XDA because reasons.

In comparison to others, my story is boring as hell, but prepare for TL/DR.
I got my first phone in 1999? where the cell phones in Poland actually started to appear. I was using random feature phones until 2011, when my best friend @Anomalious got the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. He was so amazed by Android, that I decided to pick the only smartphone I could afford - the Xperia X8. I made a call to my carrier, placed an order and got my shiny little beauty couple of days later.
I never actually thought that I will become a moderator. For over 20 years I lived in a small village (200 people) in one of the poorest regions in Poland. Needless to say that we earn only $3/h, which is a silly amount for a country in the heart of Europe and a member of European Union. Oh well, we have to live with that. When I joined the XDA, I could barely speak English (well, I still do). I was looking for a custom ROM that is faster than SE stock firmware. I joined the community, became the part of it and realized that Android is my hobby and I would love to know it more.
I started with translations, as I hated that my favorite custom ROM was partially translated to Polish. I downloaded the source and wanted to see how this thing work. I started my first build and failed miserably after 10 seconds. At this point XDA wasn't full of guides of almost everything, so I had to look for answers on my own. After a week or two I managed to compile a part of the ROM with my own translations. That was fun, so I joined the dev team, where I could talk with amazing people.
Who was your biggest influence
@doixanh. This chap is not only one of the Asian magicians that do wonders with code, but also a great pal to hang out with. His wisdom, enthusiasm and sense of humor are absolutely amazing!
What are you doing now, since XDA has opened your eyes to new opportunities
I write about tech. Over 10 years ago I made a mistake of my life and didn't chose the computer science as my studies subject. I went for journalism instead and I partially regret it. It's fun, but creating own apps and games would be much more fun. Maybe I will learn to code properly in the future. I need a motivation though :silly:
When did you decide, "it's time to make a go of this"
Almost instantly when I got my X8. It was almost unusable with the 2.1 firmware prepared by Sony Ericsson. Luckily Sony is so much different and makes better ROMs.
Where do you feel this can take you
Hopefully XDA will help me to find some good and interesting job. Right now I feel that reality hits me hard (bro) and I can't fulfill my ambitions. Nobody wants to give me a chance, which is sad and I have to live with it.

ΠΣΘ said:
One day, I learned how to change lock screen unlock rings and how changing the pngs can change the image and I began learning what images were called on when what gets pressed or moved on the screen. I was fairly decent with photoshop and offered my services in a thread talking about lock rings. Another XDA member requested I modify a TRON disc to be his lock ring which was coincidental as that was the exact thing I wanted to do to mine! I soon became friends with XDA member (My first buddy on XDA) @synisterwolf and we teamed up in our own HTC Incredible thread (or Rezound.. I actually forget which device we started all this on) making built to order lockscreen rings for people. That was a big hit and we started moving into some other theme type elements like changing the blue navigation chevron in maps to spaceships or tron cycles, etc.
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Click to collapse
the feels. <3 it was, in fact, the HTC Incredible that we started with. stuck together for the rezound. I still have the USS Enterprise Google MAPS apk somewhere.

@TonyStark pinged me to add my story..
My IT background goes something like this. I bought my first real PC in about 1998 and just sat it for hours trying to figure it out. I have never been on course or anything like that but it appears I am a pretty good problem finder / solver. If I cant find the answer google is always the way to go. I was once told I had to teach an IT class for one year (I am a maths teacher) because I was good with troubleshooting the departments PC. I got fed up of just telling the kids to google their problems because that all I would do... but that's another story.
So I upgraded to SE X10i back in about 2010 when I was playing a lot FB poker (I don't trust myself playing with real money, yet!) and I was so frustrated that I couldn't play poker on the phone. I really wondered what the point of having a smartphone that could browse the internet was if you couldn't browse the internet.
Anyway, I soon realised I needed to get Java installed on the phone and to do that I needed root. I have never heard of this before but after a LOT and a LOT of reading I was ready to try and root it. It was a really bad hack as I remember, you had to download an official FTF from Sony servers and then cancel it at exactly 98% complete so you could replace a file. I was so nervous that I would brick it....
Since then I have spent time learning about how to improve my phone. I am no serious coder at all, but I pick things up and am fairly good at helping new people to the scene and quite a good troublesooter of problems.
Who was your biggest influence.
@DooMLoRD helped me out when I started playing around with kernels
What are you doing now, since XDA has opened your eyes to new opportunities
Currently I do not even have root on my Z3. I have some apps like sky sports that wont work with it, but I am still keen on keeping up with the latest stuff
When did you decide, "it's time to make a go of this"
XDA just gradually took over, I am on here most days and my laptop is always on with XDA open.
Where do you feel this can take you
Hopefully I can start an extracurricular class at school, helping young kids get into Android or just into coding anyway at all. I will still have to learn a lot myself, but the joy is in the journey

I want to play along and this is how i started this additional with XDA
My first "smartphone" was the BlackBerry Storm. This was the stepping stone to my adventure. I met @sk8erwitskil IRL and he introduced me to the world of Linux. Showing me his Samsung phone and how he was able to modify it and at that moment i wanted to do the same. (cool kid syndrome) This lead me to buy the HTC Incredible and a group of friends, that although i have never met, they would end up changing everything for me.
I first started using METAMorph to do low level png and color thememing of apps and CM. I was bad at photoshop and would only know how to replace pngs from ones i found online. that was until i met @ΠΣΘ (formally known as IAmTheOneTheyCallNeo) I had an idea to change the lock screen rings to something more fun. I started to send PM's like a mad man requesting everything i could think of and he delivered no problem. ( i think he told me to stop using XDA pms and gave me his gtalk) Now i know our parents told us to not trust strangers online but it felt right, and who can really say no to free candy??
With Neo and I working together we were like a T-Rex with arm extension grabber things.. UNSTOPPABLE. We quickly found out how demanding the work was and not once did it feel like a chore or a job but a hobby that would push us to do great things. Not to long after we started to theme apps. Changing out the chevrons in Google MAPS for iconic spaceships and tiny cars. Our personal cars at that. He was the man that did all the photoshop and i was the one figuring out how to not break the APKs. Fast forward a year. We started to crave more. Working with an app was fun but it was time to learn how to do it the correct way. Que APKTOOL. The learning curve that is modifying an APK from scratch instead of inserting a picture was like night and day. It was a struggle, this was a new challenge that we were determined to figure out. (7Zip warrior FTW)
Enter @fernando sor, @Stoney 666, and the rest of the BAD SEED CUSTOM family. I remember staying up late asking questions on how to theme a rom. With every question i asked them two, three more would come to mind. I was so sure they would have blocked all communications with me from all the questions i had. But like a champ they were on point and ready to help this noob. Every time something new showed up on XDA i had to get it to work on the device i was on at the time. Animations in the notification screen, taking the honeycomb lock screen animation and making it work on ICS, changing the whole OS to a two tone theme. i really liked the blue and black. this would be a start to my first CM theme for the themer system.
Not to long after i met @Pons and @wildstang83. They were the ones making cool roms for the incredible. Pons did some incredible patch work for CM and stang was all about the Sense roms. this inspired me to start making my own roms. But i could never find the time to get it all working and eventually put a stop to it all. At this time i was dealing with incredible amount of depression. My personal life took a dump and i thought i was down for the count. The thought of modifying anything in android was the last thought on my mind.
It was a bad time. I felt nothing was going right and that i didn't even want to live. having 90% of my paycheck go to bills, and rent. Having to skip a meal or two so my dog and cat would have food. burned out and had enough. i tried to take my own life. i was ready to go and meet my creator and that was that. These strangers i never met in real life fought harder for me than i did myself, they manage to track me down some how and get me the help i needed. People that i have never met or didn't even know where i lived were able to call police and services and find me and saved me when i needed it the most. During my stay at the hospital, little did i know i had a lot of people trying to make sure i was okay. My phone died due to the fact there were so many phone calls, notifications, Gtalk, twitter, XDA pms. It was through these wonderful people that i am still here today. We would talk via Gtalk, IRC, Chat rooms, phone calls, text, every electronic means of communications you can think of. They cared so much about me it was a different feeling. Like there was some Good out there in the world and i could finally see it.
Today, I am a lot better. I found help with my depression and anxiety, I'm doing a lot better for myself and i have some incredible friends I've made here on xda. I was able to work with some of the greatest developers of the incredible, rezound, Inc 4g, and now the M7. (im an htc whore?) Although i dont do much now i am always learning from the wonderful devs here. I was able to get my laptop to build CM from source. I learned how to use Linux, how to write in java and how to edit smali. i know how to set paths in windows(like a boss), how to decompile a jar, apk, how to split a ramdisk, how to test OTG all thanks to the wonderful "strangers" I've met online. Thank you XDA for this wonderful place that has made me who i am.
The crackflasher, tweaker (not meth), the themer, the modifier, the one with a million questions that i know where i can get my answers. The one that will help anyone in need, like so many others did for me.
thank you everyone,
SynisterWolf

Thanks for sharing the lovely stories. Neo.. I remember the good old time.

"AOSiP experiment"

Ok so basically I want to get this off my chest because this really bothers me and I strongly believe not all points will be accepted or seen as I do. Maybe some of you have heard of the "AOSiP experiment". If not read it here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/redmi-note-5-pro/development/rom-aosp-pie-t3829052/page125 last post thread is locked.
So where do we start? I've been here around some time (even before I registered I lurked around). To the people saying xda is full of troll lately and back than it was way better. No it wasn't. Trolls and ret*rds have been around since xda started the only thing really changed is there are telegram groups for every thing (why tho?) where they troll and harass in real time. The only rule I found about xda is : the cheaper the phone the ****t*er the community. (this might be a point you don't agree on). I strive to improve the community because I am a part of it. I try to be helpful when needed point to already asked question and provide logs. And really I didn't mind fight the trolls.
But now I have to fight troll users AND troll "devs"? Troll "devs", lul never thought of using this phrase but boi here we are. I get it you are tired of all the pubg and give me SOT spammers. But why don't you just make a private telegram group for the devs? What hurts me of the most personally is that the "devs", to prove a point, said: "we gonna f*ck over our normal userbase who appreciate your works btw "(or atleast did). So because you got trolled, you trolled back. Only it missed the target. The trolls won and it's no victory to let a mod (not even akhil himself) post that ridiculously statement and close the thread so there won't be any discussion.
Also why didn't you make up a kernel? Why do you take the name of a dev who did nothing to you and drag him with you. Do you know what messages @srfarias is getting now because you thought: "lul lets take his kernel". Or does your own standards don't apply to yourself? "Trolling / harassment is bad as long as its against us? Trolling another dude is fine, as long as we don't know him?" Don't believe me? Read it here https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=78978664&postcount=112
Don't get me worn the whole maintainer team of AOSIP did great work! But on a human level they are currently as low as it can get. I personally don't give a f*ck if they stay away because this kind of devs is what's I believe makes up a toxic community. (another controversial point I guess)
Yes this is mainly a rant and maybe I'm way to offended by the devs but I really have to take this of my chest.
Thank to all the devs working on android and not playing games with their user base. And sorry @srfarias for all the sh*t you are getting right now.
Have a nice day.

Sir what's going on?

I find it a bit weird as well that they care so much about what a few people say. They completely forget about all the people who don't say anything because they have no issues at all...

Turning this theme around is trolling. Enough, please. Let's stop criticizing as users or developer and start all over again to bring out the best in us. The developers who only sporten their work and the users only our support and thanks. Enough please

Exactly that! I completely agree to all points... I bought the device 6 months back just because I saw huge development and I was completely happy with all the alternatives out there. J really liked akhils' work with Derp and never had an issue... Seeing the way now the device taking completely getting abandoned from most of the major projects going on, which also helped smaller projects to get a more polished work for our devices, just because some majority of users can't even follow the instructions of flashing or even understand what they are talking about most of the times is really disappointing.
There is always a better alternative to keep the true userbase "happy" with your work.
Everybody could easily not care about the troll's, just annouce in XDA - if they still wanted - keep a closed forum and just release personal work. Get their feedback through GitHub or any other issue tracking platform with strict bug report "protocol" and ignore all of those "members" who are unable to provide useful feedback. But, all we got now is that we got trolled by those who don't even care to try all the steps in order to provide useful feedback...
Anyways, I still appreciate the work done in Whyred and for me the best I have to do is to move to another device which potentially has a better community and devs that knows how to not care about the trolls. as most of the devs should know that 9/10 times the fault isn't in the code but in the user... Especially when we are talking about ROM/kernel performance in games for example. In telegram forum I even saw a user asking if it was possible to update his chipset form sd660 to sd845 through kernel update. Should we even care to explain to any user with this attitude? This type is not even making a research about what he is tweaking on his device and the potential damages he could get by those tweaks...

i don't own this device, but someone linked me this post for some reason.
All i can say is, i have to agree on most points in the OP.
have a nice day all

I am really Sad for this situation, I don't even own the device... but oof.... Good luck guys.

Using other devs name-for-a-project just to f'ck around/troll the users is as low as it gets.
Oh, here is my very unpopular opinion: I have had nothing but trouble with AOSiP(both oreo and pie builds). I thought it was only on my side, cuz everybody shared how good and awesome and perfect AOSiP was. Ugh, the brutal battery drains I had with AOSiP and Derp...
Holy sh't, when I read what happened yesterday, I thought I was in the wrong hecking forum and not XDA. I am glad that AOSiP is gone at this point.
Trolls should be punished, all of them, no matter who they are and what work they have done! If the main problem is trolling, make the whole forum closed behind a sub and stop whining about people being trolls. Where the f'ck have you lived until now?! On another planet? Tough luck, humans have been trolling since forever. People have been illiterate since forever. They don't care to learn, they just consume! But... When you're a dev and you're supposed to be smarter then the bunch of trolls, yet you fall on the trolls' level, you lost that one, hard!
Also, I remember srfarias from before. He has always done his best and I was surprised he started working on this device! He was never malicious! Keep it up, srfarias!

He's not in a ****, everyone here (only with brain) already knows what just happened, so it shouldn't be a problem at all, Srfarias isn't a well known (yet) on RN5 community since it was his first (and perfect) work, that's why he got attacked and to be fair that's normal and expected especially from this community, if he was a known here and developing ROMs for RN5 like the others i can imagine a totally different reaction from the same who attacked him, but since he's not known here (again, yet) then no problem, **** his rights and **** his time that he spent on this great kernel, no wonder, this is the nature of people.
Go to any ROM's topic now and see the begging, please dev don't leave us, you're the best dev, no such issue here don't report any issue you can hurt the dev, please continue your awesome work dev, will you continue this project dev?....etc.
God bless you Srfarias with this community and have fun (i doubt )

Just a personal consideration: it's sad to see how a very restricted group of people can destroy a modding community.
I can agree with you but also with the devs.
Spammers, trolls, pubg extreme players, is that really important? I have no skills about building ROMs or kernels and i'll never try to do this but, why we can't just ignore this kind of people? Why all users need to lose a good ROM (i've installed AOSiP once, and i've loved it) for those spammers?
I really hope to see AOSiP team again here in our subforum, i haven't followed this question and this is just a personal thing, but it's nice to see people on this argument.
(Sorry for my english, i have no skills on languages too )

Totally man..these devs act so mature and stuff still do retarded stuff and blame the trolls (what was the whole point of telegram group?)
.
I'm gonna give slow claps to the devs who did this experiment.
Good job you won.
.
And when it comes to this case it's not the trolls who are spreading the cancer its the...you know who.
.
SRF (the dev of pureCaf) is such a humble guy and these guys HAD to F him up.
.
Anyways I'm glad that you (the ones that did this experiment) have stopped developing ?.
We have many humble and intelligent devs who dont do stupid stuff and blame it on trolls and don't ruin other devs life.
.
Peace.

I would agree with OP on some points, including that the experiment in question was debatable because it "contained" someone's work and it had directly impacted him.
But on another note, the experiment of similar sort was desperately needed to prove a point, which many people seem to have missed.
It was not aimed at PureCAF dev and his kernel per se, it was aimed at Whyred users of different profiles who have couple of things in common - disrespect, 0 knowledge, impatience and just bad manners in summary. I have been pissed of numerous times here because I try to add something useful to disscussion and development in a way, to help other users and devs, and then comes the horde of 10 users after my post with the exact same question which I (or anyone else) have answered, not to mention that there were numerous idiotic feature requests and useless bug reports.
One thing you have to remember, the ones who have issues will always be more vocal than those who don't. We all give feedback in threads of course, but you don't suddenly jump in PM to say hey great work, everything works, keep it up, where as those badly mannered people will spam PM's if something doesn't get fixed or even their request doesn't get considered, and those people will turn to disrespect, which has been shown here frequently.
The experiment was just a tip of the iceberg, because this kind of harassment goes way way back, and with presence of Telegram as an instant messaging app, you as a known dev are fuc*ed up.
The placebo effect, which is a powerful thing sometimes, has once again proved how many clueless people are present in this forums, and how much they have an impact on community nowadays.
I have used AOSiP + Derp for a long time, and my device has performed great with that combo since June last year, but others had issues, and that's expected as although our devices are basically the same, not all electronic devices are created equal.
And have to add, I have previously used 3 flagship devices from Samsung (older ones) and Sony and no, the community there wasn't even close to this.

Nah..the point of the experiment is great, a lil bit controvery move but I agree with them.
But I don't like some part of their last statement that seems attacking purecaf dev, as far as I know srf never talk bad about them, It is some users and adi (bootlegger dev) who mock derp because rom devs change to purecaf, but once again afaik srf never do that.
In the end everyone react very poorly in this situation, looking for someone to blame in this situation is not a solution.
We (user and dev) must respect each other, mocking other dev is never good, even it is only a joke.

Sir i think derp kernel mad because everyone changing from him

alexmason90 said:
Sir i think derp kernel mad because everyone changing from him
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nah, it was much more than that, it pre-dates even this situation with PureCAF.
Guys, you'll need to see the wider picture, PureCAF kernel was not the problem, it was just the last straw. The problem lies within the community, in the nagging users themselves and the pressure they have been putting on devs.
I was expecting something similiar, I'm even surprised that it took this long, however the handling of the situation could have been better, I admit.

It's just some little kids fight, almost funny to watch actually. Ambitious and jealous people are like this, they have a tense nature.
Also, I don't believe XDA management is compotent enough. Even the website is using an outdated design and broken some parts.
Anyway, this was surely interesting to watch.

I've not read every single post, but none the less:
I've been with XDA since March of 2011. I lurked at least a year or so before that. I joined with my first smartphone ever, the HTC Desire. With every smartphone i've owned since, i was active in their respective forums. And from my personal (non scientific) feelings, the XDA community has been getting progressively "worse". I fondly remember the days where we spend days and weeks in threads talking about how to get android 4 to boot on hopefully outdated Hardware. Minor achievements where shared, several people where collectively working on something while having a nice and technical discussion. I loved coming here to hang out with the geeks and talk about the things i enjoy most.
But lately, i've just not bothered. It might be because it's my first Xiaomi, and the community is different from Samsung or HTC. I have not logged in in over 4 weeks and after coming back today i have not found a single thread that's actually usefull. Sure, Rom Releases are nice, but it feels a lot like Linux Distributions. All the same stuff with a different wallpaper and name on it. I won't **** on anyone actually putting his work out here. I highly appreciate that. But i feel the Gold Rush of Android development is done. And now here we are, complaining about what devs should and shouldn't do, and making the 100th thread about what rom has the best batterylife. I feel like most people that come here don't even care to do the bare minimum of research. That's frustrating. This used to be a place for people who enjoyed mobile devices and hacking on them as a hobby. Not a customer support forum for people not getting 20 hours of Screen on Time.
Yes, releasing a ROM with advertised changes you didn't make, and in the process using a devs name for work he didn't do is not a nice move. I can see where they are coming from and why they did what they did. It used to be a major offense against the devs to even ask for Features or ETAs. It was just not tolerated basically. We are basically doing open source development here. Want something done? Well bad luck. Do it yourself or wait for someone to do it. You are not paying anyone to do the work. Be greatfull for what our devs do and stop asking for more. If you want more, or faster, do it yourself.
I personally don't get anything of value out of XDA anymore. I've always been here to be part of the process. To be at the forefront of what's possible in mobile tech. I wanted experimental stuff and see things break for the sake of it. I enjoyed talking to devs about the process and getting insight into what's happening behind the scenes. I never came to XDA for the "best battery backup rom" out there. This is a community of interested people. Not a customer Support forum.

@domsch1988
it's not your personal feelings, it's the true fact
I think all the old users here feel the same, I've learnt alooooooooot from this community and I'm really grateful to everyone I've got something from him but now everything is really weird!
And i really liked this "Rom Releases are nice, but it feels a lot like Linux Distributions. All the same stuff with a different wallpaper and name on it" , it's like we are in Olympics, tons of ROMS and sharing the same bugs and sometimes full of bugs like the earlier releases of every android pie ROM here once Pie was out, why everyone was in a hurry to give a full of bugs ROM? glory or first Pie ROM maybe? instead of squashing the bugs and giving 3 or 4 perfect ROMS every day a new ROM with the same ****, and it's not only that, half of the ROMS now have 3 versions, the official, the modded or unofficial one and the one on telegram (the new disaster on XDA) WTF? and 90% of the developers here are not responding to any inquiries, yeah, i can clearly notice that.
Why they aren't working together and give their best instead of this mess if they really want to serve this community? I've seen many users here complain that they are confused and don't know which is better or with less bugs or will get regular updates.....etc.
About (the majority) on this community i think there's no need to talk since i really get bored and nothing will ever change here, sad but true.
And finally a new dev came here and gave us a prefect kernel and now he is involved without making any mistake, his crime is that he refused to see his work is being used from the others and without even asking or mentioning him, LOL!
Everything is getting worse here, and unfortunately from all not only the users.
Btw, Thanks for this post :good:

One quick reply: the general decline in the community is not specific for XDA, it is a general phenomena concerning the internet. In the beginning mostly the geeks and nerds used the internet. Now everyone is literally always online. Of course this includes all the idiots and a...holes, too.
And because most people think that nobody knows who they are while posting on the internet, civility went down the drain, too.
Gesendet von meinem MI PAD 4 PLUS mit Tapatalk

Gandhi70 said:
One quick reply: the general decline in the community is not specific for XDA, it is a general phenomena concerning the internet. In the beginning mostly the geeks and nerds used the internet. Now everyone is literally always online. Of course this includes all the idiots and a...holes, too.
And because most people think that nobody knows who they are while posting on the internet, civility went down the drain, too.
Gesendet von meinem MI PAD 4 PLUS mit Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since we are in a general talk topic I just want to say that this is the best and the KISS explanation ever given in forum. This really small paragraph you wrote can easily explain on it's own what happened to all technical communities!!!

Database Info

welcome