Related
Alright so I have had Andromeda 2.0 installed on my captivate for quite a while now, needless to say those guys did an excellent job building that puppy. I was even able to turn one of my die hard AT&T friends toward it. I grow tired of things quickly, so now I'm looking to upgrade my phone once again to a new ROM. I haven't made up my mind completely yet, I still love Andromeda might switch to a new kernel IDK. Give me what you think will be a good ROM for a somewhat newbie ROM flasher/user/developer.
But any way, the real reason why I'm posting on this forum is because a scholarship opportunity that became available to me.
But any way, the real reason why I'm posting on this forum is because a scholarship oppurtunity that became available to me. The scholarship is called "Your Question Your Mark" and it valued at 40K (10K/year). UD is a private school that has an excellent engineering program that has many ties to WPAFB, and allot of respect. The downside is UD costs a pretty penny, and my parents don't want to fork over too much dough. So the most of tuition lies on me. Financial aid from FASA is out out of the question too.
I've already been accepted into the UD electrical engineering program, and I hope to major in electro-optics in the future.
So what am I asking from the viewer of this thread? Just go to the link and click on the like button under my video, and if you are feeling saint like distribute the video to other laser enthusiasts and friends. You don't even have to watch it, however you may learn a lil something. You will need a Facebook account to do so though. If you don't have a Facebook, they are pretty cool an all...
You can look through some of the other videos, just don't like any of them. Please! It is competition based on the amount of votes you receive. The top 10 videos with the most votes are to be judged, 3 videos are selected. 1st prize is $40,000 and 2nd and 3rd are only $2500. Yeah I know big drop off.
Sorry about the choice in music, originally I made a pretty sweet intro using Animoto to Livin on a Prayer. I posted the Intro on YouTube then ripped it off, just cause Animoto doesn't let you own the video. Needless to say I violated several copyright laws, so I decided to play it safe then sorry and use some copyright free music.
Hope you all will enjoy the video as much as I will enjoy your all's vote.
The link is now under this post, its where it says I last edited it. Forum rules say I have to have at least 8 posts before I can post a link. So please do this for me, and just copy and paste the link into your address bar.
What does this have to do with the Captivate?
No idea, but ud (University of Dayton) is pretty expensive. I live just about 2 minutes from it. Without them and Miami Valley Hospital, Dayton would be dead. But ya, what's it gotta do with the captivate?
You are definitely not following forum rules by posting this. No report button from the xda app but it should get locked/deleted. Good luck with school but this is not the proper forum.
This is my Captivate. There are many like it but this one is mine
Thread closed
I'm not here to only promote my app. I'd prefer to open a much broader discourse re the freedom app development can bring, about the Android platform and development framework and other such things. I'm new to the XDA forums... you'll understand why if you keep reading.
I crafted my first Android app over the past few months. I've got a couple of old skool Symbian apps - one of which stayed in the Ovi store top 30 for well over three months (although that's not too impressive really). I really enjoyed learning Java and Android. I'm a (embedded) C++ geek and have never bothered with Java before now.
I gotta say I like it. I found both Java and Android easy and the development cycle fast. Not saying I've mastered it or anything like that it as I've only spent a couple of months working on the platform and language so far. I think the results are pretty impressive considering the effort (link below).
The story of my app creation might be interesting for a couple of reasons but it might also might bore you to tears... developing apps can bring freedom from the office cubicle. You can leave those Dilbert days behind And I don't mean swapping the office for a bedroom. I coded this app (and others) from a hammock on the beaches of Asia.
I live and work in Europe, on contract, in Spring/Summer/Autumn and beach bum in Winter. I've been doing this for years (missed 4 years in 14) and I'm always surprised how few other I meet on the road. I meet lots of fishermen, builders and tradespeople who take off annually - work in winter can be scarce. The coding profession lends itself pretty well to this lifestyle (I know this lifestyle isn't for everyone) but very few do it. I've met a handful of Israeli coders who traverse the beaches of India during the winter but that's about it.
Starting a app without internet access on remote beaches can be challenging but the samples in the Android SDK are pretty good. I used these as the base for my code. The documentation provided me with a reference for everything else I needed. I gotta hand it to Google, they've done a great job here.
I like to think the app stands out from the crowd in a couple of ways (but maybe I'm like a delusional parent ;-)). I like my UI. I paint and used to create my own comics as a kid. I've had a couple of "wow, what's that?" comments while testing it on the road. Also, there's no other app on the market that does the same thing; no competition.
I know this is kinda controversial and say the Android UI framework is just OK. When I compare it with something QT it's lacking. I guess that I believe that the test of framework is how easy it is for a coder to mould into whatever they desire. A great framework is like virtual plasticine. The Android framework is good but not great. I'd suggest the QT framework is great but I can only compare against what I've used previously. By the way the old Nokia frameworks were terrible.
So what does my app do? InterRupt measures the background noise and when a noise breaks (is louder than) the background noise it routes it through to the headphones. You can decide how much greater the noise has to be before you hear it in your headphones. It makes cycling and jogging safer when listening to music/podcasts/internet radio/etc. And it's a good solution for listening to music at work (read hammock)... which I do all the time. I can now hear my colleagues (other beach bums) speak to me ;-).
You can test my app on the market. There's a free trial - search for InterRupt.
I'm happy enough with it. But I guess like every coder, I see the faults in my own work and what I would do differently. Now, it's onto the challenge of promoting the app and this is where I don't have a clue. Any advice would be welcome. I'm now back in Europe and have internet access again.
I really like the idea of this.
Sent from my glacier using XDA App
Any advice on promoting an app?
Dude, it's a crowded market. So much so that it's no longer a meritocracy.
It seems dev's launch apps into oblivion and gotta find a way of bringing it to life - not an easy ask.
My app now disappears so far down the list that it takes literally five minutes to scroll to the app in the Audio category... ouch! That's after one week.
I've added a trial version and I've contacted some bloggers and Android sites that accept apps for reviews. A couple of guys have contacted me from these sites... really nice guys I gotta say.
How do most Android dev's get noticed in the crowd?
Should I choose another category? Is Audio more crowded than most?
All options and thoughts are welcome. Thanks dudes.
First of all, i have to say this is a very interesting app...i'm gonna try this as soon as i finish this reply.
i think xda is an amazing place to get started and to receive good feedbacks about how to really improve your app before advertising ....
and as for ideas.... i think a cool minimalistic website. Make sure your friends "Like" it... and that should atleast get you started ...
Thanks for the SolidKundi,
I haven't added InterRupt to my website, I had planned to do it this weekend. But it still doesn't help get word out there... people need to know the site. It's kinda the same problem.
Is it worth doing a PR launch? It seems expensive and I'm not sure if it'll get lost in the haze. I guess it might get some Google news rankings. Has anyone tried this before?
Paid apps are not allowed unfortunately.
I wrote about it here: LINK
Does anyone know more about the background - from the twitter account it seems like just a general run-down and a disappointing community.
Other developers on here feel the same?
I'd love to get comments from some of the developers on here, if that is the case.
I'm not a developer but did read this already on a posting at Google+.
But you are right, moving into that direction would be very bad.
Some people think they can be rude because they stay anonymous.
Its something that happens more and more these days on the internet.
I realize it's impossible - there are 12 year olds who probably run rampant.
Seems like there is SOMETHING that can be done.
I'm as Pro-Android as they come. But at times it feels like starting a relationship with a beautiful boy/girl only to find they come with a sack load of emotional baggage.
Here's my take on it: http://andgamesdevblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/android-culture-its-own-worst-enemy.html
I am far from giving up (thick skinned) but there is a real troll culture growing and needs to be stomped out. Anonymity has it's uses but, as with everything else, has its drawbacks. What we need is troll hunters!
Paul
(aka Strangemoo)
I have seen that there are some stupid comments on the market... But not so extreme as to take down your app...
Some users is just plain stupid... I'm from Denmark, so a lot of the comments are in danish... But that devs are many times foreign and really don't look or understand the comments... But a lot of them complain about pathetic things like no app 2 sd or that some function suddenly's gone instead of just writing the dev an email about the issue and giving the app the respect it deserves... 1/5 rating is a lot of the times not justified...
Just my 2-cents...
I'm sorry but this is a silly and immature move by the developer. Receiving negative feedback, dealing with trolls and idiotic users that don't understand technology are fundamental assumptions of the internet, just like not giving out your passwords or helping Nigerian princes get their money out of Africa.
I loved ShootMe and used it for our screenshots, but I don't have a lot of empathy for people that empower others to control how they feel.
Wrote about this a few weeks back: http://www.androidstatic.com/what-shootme-removed-from-the-android-market
I work in IT support and one of the things I have to support is phones. It blows my mind how many 10-12 year old kids have nicer phones than I do because their rich mommy and daddys think their precious little angels needs the latest and greatest smart phones. I went over to a client's office a couple of months ago and he had 3 brand new Droid 2s for his kids, ranging from 10-14.
Point of all this?
In this day and age, there are so many rude little kids with nice phones all over these forums, its amazing to me anyone sticks around. Im over 40 and was raised in a different time than these self entitled children I see around here that want everything now, for free and want you to do it for them.
I cant blame the guy for leaving. A lot of times I wish I could go live on an island somewhere where I didnt have to deal with people because most of them suck.
s15274n said:
I wrote about it here: LINK
Does anyone know more about the background - from the twitter account it seems like just a general run-down and a disappointing community.
Other developers on here feel the same?
I'd love to get comments from some of the developers on here, if that is the case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not a developer, but I was a ShootMe user on my EVO 4G. When it received the upgrade to Gingerbread, the app stopped working. The developer never replied to my email and from reading comments on Market didn't reply to anyone.
He did finally released a new version of ShootMe, but you had to have a computer to use it. Also everytime your reboot your phone, you had to sync everytime with your computer.
Sent from my HTC EVO 3D using Tapatalk
Welcome to the "masses".
Want a better experience? Go smaller. Dev for Windows Phone, or Web OS, or RIM.
Once something becomes part of the main stream, you'll see the d-bags start rolling in. Even something like xda can be tarnished once it "gets too big". There is hardly a day that goes by where I don't read a thread here that doesn't make me shake my head. This used to be a highly technical forum, back when every devices was htc and running windows mobile.
The only thing that can really be done, is to work with a smaller, more appreciative community. I doubt you would get very many jerk off comments from a Windows Phone user, they are happy to get whatever they can.
All very good points. I wish I had put a little into my thoughts before typing that up - dev's need to be tougher AND respond to people.
s15274n said:
All very good points. I wish I had put a little into my thoughts before typing that up - dev's need to be tougher AND respond to people.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As a android developer IMHO the android community is as bad as they come. Xda for example used to be a place of collaboration. Currently its a place where maybe .1% do dev, .9% appreciate the development and try to help, 99% ether complain or say nothing at all. Whether the development is for free or profite(which I won't evev get into here) how is a developer supposed to work off of that? Users would rather right a comment blasting a developer who has literally spent days of his life on some product without even attempting to resolve the issue themselves.
I'm not saying some complaints are not warranted, just saying flip the coin around and its not so hard to understand the developers standpoint.
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
There is no denying that there is frustration on both sides. This frustration seems to stem from expectation, communication and control.
The developer expects their customers to be civil.
The users expects the developers to devote anything between some to all of their resources/free time building/making their products better.
Both are unreasonable expectations if you think about it.
Civility can only be maintained in a mediated environment - the Android Market seems only concerned about brand and copyright issues. Google seems to think that it's ok to put its developer behind chicken-wire with lights in their eyes whilst their customers are free to hurl beer bottles at them. Dealing with anony-trolls is time consuming and offputting.
Developers range from teenagers with spare time on their hands up to multi-million dollar development studios. I, myself, am a father of three, I work a full week (we've got to eat!) and I code when time permits. Even though I respond to every request put to my apps, if you think that I'm going to compromise the balance of other areas of my life to put in a bug fix - think again. Sure, some of the more effluent businesses can throw more resources into a project, but just bare in mind that most of us are just people and not doormats. Respect and encouragement is all it takes to make the market a happy place. Flaming just ruins things for all (on both sides).
Communication between devs and end users is and most likely always will be a bit of a sticking point. The fact that everyone has their own opinions, likes, dislikes kind of makes it obvious that there will never be an app with 100% 5 stars. Even the most popular apps on the market have ratings across the board. Though, admittedly, some of the low grades may be down to trolling - but some of them will be genuine. Communication takes time. From a user, it may take a couple of minutes out of their day. For the dev, they may have hundreds a day to deal with. This takes them away from the development that the mail is probably asking for!
A user doesn't, and should never have control over the developer. They should, however, be able to request, beg, plead *nicely*. If they get frustrated then they should remember the phrase 'you get what you pay for'. The developer doesn't get any money when you bought your phone - so don't think they have any obligation to give you something for nothing. If it's a paid app, then the developer is saying 'yes, I'll support it.' That's fair sport.
The developer should have some control over their customers in the sense that a shopkeeper can choose who they let in their shops. Unfortunately they have none. They can't even moderate the comments on the market. I've had a 'GAY - Pointless, uninstall' (his words, not mine) on a free app downloaded 12,000 times and has a 4* rating. I can't do anything about it. It always appears when people go to the page. This individual has hurt my app and me without provocation. I didn't ask anything from them. Fortunately, the following message pointed out that the 'Pointless' user was an idiot (thanks XZombie), hopefully it will negate some of the damage. We're completely at the mercy of the masses, and being a relatively new dev, it's a scary place to be!
It's a shame that the most influential party in all of this is hiding behind a wall of silence.
If you're interested - I'm keeping a track of my experience of Android development. The link is in my earlier post.
Paul
Strangemoo
Paul, I do agree with you to a point. But I'm not sure if I like about developers editing comments. But I do see what you mean about people leaving dumb comments for an app that does work.
Sent from my HTC EVO 3D using Tapatalk
Katt,
I don't suggest developers could edit comments - that would make the process equally pointless, as devs can put all of the 'nice' things they want in the description anyway. Sorry if I implied otherwise.
Devs should be able to either remove, request for removal or even block the rogue elements. At present, we have to just live with the insults with no way to disprove their claims. Even a 'troll flag' would be an improvement - to show other users that the dev disagrees with the comment.
All accountability is on the devs whereas trolls can run freely.
Do any other devs out there agree with me on this? Others may have had a much more dealings with such than I have.
Cheers,
Paul
IMO if google was smart they would allow for a limited ammount(% of total) of "submissions" of there comments to a third party(google). If they are found outlandish they can be removed.
My 2 cents lol. I can say as a dev of a few apps on the market I have gotten rediculous comments n 1 stars b4. I mean if they are justified that's a different thing entirely. But my 1 stars are disproportionally higher then the trend of the others. Which proves one thing...
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
This is an honestly great thread. Good initiative to |OP|
Taking down an app just because of a few nasty comments is just
childish and quite frankly pathetic.
Seems that developer has chucked his toys out the pram, if he does
decide to release it again who is going to trust such a developer?
I know I wouldn't use the app again, seeing as he's stuck 2 fingers up
to loyal users and the whole android community all because of a small
minority of people.
The whole thing stinks of the guy thinking he is above any kind of bad
feedback, obviously a developer that doesn't listen to the users of his
app and a developer that turns his back at the drop of a hat.
I'm sure he will be missed... Not
Ps. there are better screenshot apps out there
I agree with your comment. Though I am not a dev. I have experience working in the retail end of software. This is a I want it now society, folks forget that they got this software/app for free and as soon as they have a little issue they fly off the deep end cussing out the maker/distribitor of the product. Anyhow like you said you get what you pay for.LIke in my IT course in school my book said "check the dummy behind the keyboard" anyhow thanks for the great apps i use the time flies app.
If a dev dropped his customers because of a couple of snide comments then, yeah, I'd agree with you.
But was that the case for ShootMe?
Before we start flinging hooks around here, wouldn't it be more productive to actually find out what happened first.
I may be proven wrong here, but the guy must've been given some serious grief to take such a newsworthy action.
In fact, that's not been mentioned - it could be media storming. Drum up enough publicity and come back blazing. Only time will tell on that one.
At the end of the day, it's his property. And if he makes a lot of people unhappy that's his prerogative. The reason he's giving though are indeed a real issue the community needs to address.
The plot thickens.
(Glad you like Times Flies! You're most welcome)
Paul
I've noticed that the flavor of a community will vary a lot by device. The Captivate community seems to be generally good and helpful for the most part, but I've heard horror stories of ungratefulness and rudeness about communities around other devices. It may be the same sort of thing with different varieties of apps. If people feel like an app performs a function they deserve outright, they may be less inclined to courtesy and more inclined to selfish expectation.
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!
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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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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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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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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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.