I have gotten a chance to play with the Samsung Transform.
Let me tell you it’s like a mini HTC EVO.
Once we get all the bloat ware off of it it’s going to be a great phone.
Great alternative if you don’t want an evo with the premium data plan.
I have a rooted EVO and i love it but i rarely use 4G.
I just got one today as well. Can we PLEASE get a Transform section?
I was really excited to get one of these (no $10/mo 4G charge) but I went to the Sprint store and used the demo. Choppy, choppy, choppy. It confused me so I looked into it and it turns out that - according to Sprint via Endgadget - the CPU lacks OpenGL acceleration. If this is true, it's either a grave oversight or an evil manipulation by Sprint/Samsung.
I look forward to seeing what can be done with this phone - it deserves its own section for sure - but first impressions are that this phone needs a lot of help.
I just got one today as well.
nick_danger said:
I was really excited to get one of these (no $10/mo 4G charge) but I went to the Sprint store and used the demo. Choppy, choppy, choppy. It confused me so I looked into it and it turns out that - according to Sprint via Endgadget - the CPU lacks OpenGL acceleration. If this is true, it's either a grave oversight or an evil manipulation by Sprint/Samsung.
I look forward to seeing what can be done with this phone - it deserves its own section for sure - but first impressions are that this phone needs a lot of help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The one I tried at the Sprint store was incredibly choppy as well. The Sanyo phone that just came out with Froyo ran a lot better in store. When I got my Samsung Moment I didn't use Sprint ID and it ran loads better than the one in the store. I also changed to Launcher Pro and now it's zippy.
bump cmon we need a section...
Yes please, so we can have developers talk about root!
This is a great device and a very nice upgrade from the hero. I forgot how much I missed having a physical keyboard. I also put on launcher pro and it seems very responsive. However, it could use some tweaks - for sure...
bump................
I will bump as well:
I have always relied on xda for my phone altering needs and I love this site... I just got a Transform which is missing 2 things in my opinion, android 2.2 (coming this year maybe?) and it's own section on xdadevelopers.
If any mods are reading this I am including my vote for a new section to be added for this phone.
Thank you!
Go to sdx-developers I'm sure they can help...not many transform owners or devs here since most people with sprint have an evo, epic, or hero
Sent from my HERO200 using XDA App
I think we need a section for the transform also....
http://forum.sdx-developers.com/index.php#c24
Those guys have a Transform section. As a matter of fact most of what they do is Samsung phones.
Wait, wait, wait! Are the XDA-Developers going to let another site steal the limelight??? Noooooo! Come on, do it for ME! LOL I have used this site for over a year now with several different devices and can honestly say there is no better site or community. I also know that some of the devs are on more than one site, which is totally fine. Create the section so some of the sdx devs can post their work here as well.
I have an Evo and even that phone wasn't perfect to begin with. It was XDA-Developers who made it the glorious and sexy thing my Evo is today. The Transform suffers from bad development, and all it needs to be a great phone is the same thing - XDA-Developers! Let's get this device up to speed!
I'm getting my wife a Transform on Black Friday (free that day only at Radio Shack) and really want to be able to use xda for both our phones.
Come one, I'm begging you! Seriously! I'm on my knees typing this, tears streaming down my cheeks! The ones on my face, um, not the other ones. But I'll do that too if it'll get us a Transform section!
+1 we need a transform section. I have a G2, but my dad just got a Transform. I don't know if it's cause I'm used to the G2 monster but good hell this phone is SLOW and preloaded with so much garbage. Seems to me that theres not much in the department of rom's for Samsungs in general, I can't find any that I like on a Vibrant either.
Does anyone know of a working flashlight app for the transform?? When does it get the OTA? I read that it will get 2.2 last quarter of 2010 but that didn't happen. My dad is getting extremely mad at his phone, and it's issues that FroYo Fixed on my phone.
Yes We Do Need A Transform Section....
I Couldn't agree more that we need a transform section... I don't own one myself but I put my GF's Sister on my plan and got her a Transform. Now I know SDX already has a Transform section BUT There are quite a few people out there who don't know about SDX and I really thought XDA was trying to be all inclusive... Hell we got a Evo_Shift section like the day after the phone dropped so IDK if we are going to get a Transform section here, Also I know there are Issues that people who are willing to dedicate their time 2 keeping up with the forum (IE moderators) and honestly it seems like when the Mods start slacking the forum goes 2 crap, look 2 the Epic Forms and you'll see what I mean, But yeah I was really let down when I brought the Transform 2 my house and was getting ready to root it, ROM it up and Possibly get sum themes going, See where they were at with speeding it up and doing it big, yet I spent 5 min on XDA before I realized that I would be creating a SDX account, To this day I don't understand why the Transform is so overlooked, Maybe its because the Moment and Intercept were such fails... yet they both have sections here, Who Knows. I just thought I would throw in my .02 on this as I really don't get why the transform hasn't seen much love even tho it has loads of potential I guess In the mean time it will continue 2 be overlooked...
Please read the latest announcement. by our administrator, it addresses the part about getting a new section added.
Thread closed.
Hey guys,
New user here (and a CS major), so I know a little bit about what rooting and flashing is, however have NEVER done it, so implementation wise, I'm very naive about how to do it, and I definitely don't want to mess my phone up. My first Android device was purchased in November of last year with the MyTouch 4G. Made a great decision. Decided to upgrade to a G2X just recently, got it in Friday, purchased the docks for it today (which yes, I am slightly disappointed with)....but I miss the HTC Sense ROM.
Basically I'm wondering if the HTC Sense ROM is smoother and if anybody is using it on the phone yet. Any feedback would be great. Thanks guys!
Also, is there any way to change what the "hard" buttons on the front are set to do? If I rooted it could I change what these buttons did. I'd like to use the 'genius' button that HTC has on their MyTouch 4G instead of search.
I've also read through some of the threads about rooting and flashing to a new ROM. Basically is there anything I should know being a newbie when it comes to flashing and changing the ROM on it? Any hints or tips?
Thanks again!
There are no roms for the G2x yet.
This includes steps for Root: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1050534
Once you have root access, you can go into the Market and download "Rom Manager".
This will download and install a custom Recovery Console which allows flashing.
Again, the phone is so new, there are no available Roms available at this time. We do have Root and Recovery which is 2/3 the way there.
Again, so I'm a little new to this whole rooting stuff, so there is no HTC Sense that will work with this phone because I have found some downloads, but I'm just not sure if they would work.
Again, I'm new here, so I don't know if this is one of those things I will have to wait a while for or what...any idea based on past phones?
GSUFan513 said:
Again, so I'm a little new to this whole rooting stuff, so there is no HTC Sense that will work with this phone because I have found some downloads, but I'm just not sure if they would work.
Again, I'm new here, so I don't know if this is one of those things I will have to wait a while for or what...any idea based on past phones?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also love HTC Sense. It's the only thing I miss about the MyTouch 4g. I'm not sure which ROMS you are referring to, but there are no ROMS available for our phone yet, including Sense ROMS. I'd be very careful about flashing anything until you're comfortable with the steps, and lingo.
Got the G2X last week, upgraded from a virgin G1. I am also new to the root world. I have been browsing around the site here for the last couple of days. There is a wealth of information here, but it is a little overwhelming... Is there a thread/sticky/website that goes over the basics for a beginner. I apoligize in advance for being a newb.....
Thanks,
Mike
GSUFan513 said:
Again, so I'm a little new to this whole rooting stuff, so there is no HTC Sense that will work with this phone because I have found some downloads, but I'm just not sure if they would work.
Again, I'm new here, so I don't know if this is one of those things I will have to wait a while for or what...any idea based on past phones?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you really,really,really, need to STOP, and read. not being an ass. but, you're saying you've found some downloads,yet have no idea what they are. ???? or what phone they're for. or if they'll brick your phone. the devs are working on things to make it super simple for people like you to root and install roms. do them a favor by reading. and then, read a little more. ask some questions. post them in the correct section. and take peoples advice. that's the best advice i can give you. and, read the stickies at the top of threads.
WorldWide60 said:
I also love HTC Sense. It's the only thing I miss about the MyTouch 4g. I'm not sure which ROMS you are referring to, but there are no ROMS available for our phone yet, including Sense ROMS. I'd be very careful about flashing anything until you're comfortable with the steps, and lingo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually work for T-Mobile, I feel pretty comfortable with what I'm doing, and have no qualms about flashing but I will be careful as always about it. Yeah, I REALLY miss the messaging portion and genius button of the mytouch. Would love to get those two options back....
Also about my second question, when flashed does it change the outter "hard" buttons too? For instance instead of search could I use the search button as a genius button?
snp304 said:
Got the G2X last week, upgraded from a virgin G1. I am also new to the root world. I have been browsing around the site here for the last couple of days. There is a wealth of information here, but it is a little overwhelming... Is there a thread/sticky/website that goes over the basics for a beginner. I apoligize in advance for being a newb.....
Thanks,
Mike
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In time I think there will more guides/stickies. Unfortunately for you guys, I think the majority of the people that bought a G2x came from previous phones that they were flashing, rooting, and modding. You're in the right spot. XDA is definitely the best place to learn.
GSUFan513 said:
I actually work for T-Mobile, I feel pretty comfortable with what I'm doing, and have no qualms about flashing but I will be careful as always about it. Yeah, I REALLY miss the messaging portion and genius button of the mytouch. Would love to get those two options back....
Also about my second question, when flashed does it change the outter "hard" buttons too? For instance instead of search could I use the search button as a genius button?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so far, there's a hack to map the search button to the camera app. it works great. and the same button snaps pics if you like.
I hate HTC sense, and every other android skin for that matter, although certain tidbits of TouchWiz are nice. You won't find sense on the g2x anytime soon, it's designed for HTC phones specifically, so porting it to a different brand would be very difficult and tedious.
GSUFan513 said:
I actually work for T-Mobile, I feel pretty comfortable with what I'm doing, and have no qualms about flashing but I will be careful as always about it. Yeah, I REALLY miss the messaging portion and genius button of the mytouch. Would love to get those two options back....
Also about my second question, when flashed does it change the outter "hard" buttons too? For instance instead of search could I use the search button as a genius button?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As was said before, there are no custom ROMs out yet. Once they start coming in, I'd ask that question to the devs so they could potentially make that an option
WorldWide60 said:
In time I think there will more guides/stickies. Unfortunately for you guys, I think the majority of the people that bought a G2x came from previous phones that they were flashing, rooting, and modding. You're in the right spot. XDA is definitely the best place to learn.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks, gotta say, that I love the phone, of course coming from a virgin G1, who wouldn't. Looking forward to learning and making it even better.
Thanks for the feedback guys, I found what I was asking. Sorry if this thread was in the wrong location, I guess I'm just antsy to see some HTC Sense ROMS.
crazythunder said:
you really,really,really, need to STOP, and read. not being an ass. but, you're saying you've found some downloads,yet have no idea what they are. ???? or what phone they're for. or if they'll brick your phone. the devs are working on things to make it super simple for people like you to root and install roms. do them a favor by reading. and then, read a little more. ask some questions. post them in the correct section. and take peoples advice. that's the best advice i can give you. and, read the stickies at the top of threads.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice job not being an ass *blinks*, I HAVE read the stickies, and spent the past hour or so looking through threads, just looking for a little clarification. I didn't realize that there were different ROM for different Phones. (Thought it might be like Windows to PCs, doesn't matter on the manufacturer of the PC, you can install windows on it as long as it meets bottom end reqs) If I had understood that, I wouldn't have asked the question.
And don't act like I'm not Tech savvy. I fix computers as a side job, I'm a developer and about to graduate with a Computer Science degree from a good nationally certified university. But I haven't worked in phone development at all, so this stuff is something I'm learning about. Again, I was just asking a few questions, don't get your panties in a wad.
You wont see a sense rom anytime soon, this isnt a htc device. Return the phone and wait for the htc sensation
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA Premium App
sorry bout the "treating you like a newb" lol. i'm just a techie, no dev skills. you probably know more crap than me. i just see "2 posts" and questions about how to root as "oh no, this guy\girl is going to brick their phone!"lol
no offense intended. i just come off the wrong way sometimes.
huntman21014 said:
You wont see a sense rom anytime soon, this isnt a htc device. Return the phone and wait for the htc sensation
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea I don't think we'll see a Sense rom but anything can happen. Usually people with Sense and the Genius button go the other way (want a dedicated search and pure android)
The good thing is Sense can be replicated to a certain degree using themed launchers. There are even iPhone themed launchers. I use Launcher Pro because they have several special widgets that function and behave much like some of the Sense variants. The recent release of Launcher Pro has added themes to the mix, and are already lots of "Sense" themed Launcher Pro widgets and dock styles.
As far as the Genius button, I've never used it. I DO know that the Search key is awesome and allows searching in most apps. Also you should download "Google Voice Search" (not Google Voice, that is Visual Voicemail) and map it to a long press of the search button. Then you can just press and hold and say, "map pizza" or "call mom" or "text girlfriend hey I'm running late. see you in 30 minutes."
Hey!
Sense is not impossible, but you're probably not going to see it for a looong time if it does ever happen. HTC's software mantra is "lock-and key"-- only HTC branded phones have the correct permissions/drivers/guts in general to flash Sense ROMs. I've been waiting for one on the Vibrant since release. They got one booting, but it's far from stable and the whole project has been abandoned due to difficulty.
I second the "read, read, read" theme. Go to the vibrant or atrix or nexus s forum for example. (any comparable smart/superphone will do). Read THOSE stickies/posts/comments in alllll the sections. You have to get a feel for the lingo around here. This website comes complete with its own independent subculture. Which is unfortunately titled "geek".
I would say the most important part to learning however, is trying... and then totally ****ing it up and freaking out aaaand, since you don't want to have a $200 brick on your hands, you are forced by circumstance to learn :] As a word of encouragement, I've been from vibrant to nexus one and back and I find that even with all the ass-backwards stuff I did the first time I tried making/flashing zips/unlocking bootloaders/using fastboot for the first time etc., it's actually pretty damn hard to brick a phone beyond repair if you have half a brain.
CS major eh? Went to carnegie mellon myself. The place was full of them :] Being that the g2x has no ROMs, you're a cs major and you're most likely monetarily bound to an open source phone os for the next 2 years, why not download the android sdk and start cookin' up some ROMs yourself??? I've been told by people who do it that it's not that hard to learn. Carpe Diem my friend.
Any questions? PM me. The community around here used to be really really cool and helpful and informative. Now it kind of sucks :/
does anyone know how to get the "/" symbol to work in terminal emulator? i tried softkeys, special keys. No luck. Im so close to installing modaco 4.0.0.9
for the final step i need the "/" symbol. i can use the "\" symbol but that's not the right symbol. please help.
Honestly you guys, I do search alot before I post anything. I never thought to use the on screen keyboard. I found out how.. I've been on this site for days and days researching, everything. I always use the hardware keyboard. Never the on screen keyboard. (sighs...sorry)
[email protected] said:
Honestly you guys, I do search alot before I post anything. I never thought to use the on screen keyboard. I found out how.. I've been on this site for days and days researching, everything. I always use the hardware keyboard. Never the on screen keyboard. (sighs...sorry)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, it is a bit of a pisser that key doesn't work correctly in terminals.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=17724216&postcount=5
Lol. I did get it to flash modaco tho. Just finished back up with Titanium. Hopefully now i should be able to flash a rom. O ya... When im in Hboot the screen will tell me no image..no image.. no image..no image. It will auto run this in green all the way down the screen. Why?
[email protected] said:
Lol. I did get it to flash modaco tho. Just finished back up with Titanium. Hopefully now i should be able to flash a rom. O ya... When im in Hboot the screen will tell me no image..no image.. no image..no image. It will auto run this in green all the way down the screen. Why?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All hboots do that. My g2 does that and my wifes MT4G as well.
Sent from my Undeadk9's Senseless ROM using xda premium
Undeadk9... what an honer to reply to you. I've read all your posts. I wanna flash your latest Senseless..Sounds fast. I myself would like to thank you for all the hard work you put into this forum. You do a wonderful job. Your posts and comments mean alot. I'm such a noob but love phones and cpu's. I really would love to fluently learn how to do anything that involves those things,but have no idea where to begin. What would you suggest I learn? I ask because you know what your talking about. Do you mind if i contact you in a pm or something just to bleed your brain sometime? Think about it. Thanks again!!
The problem is the question mark key.
Check all your other alt keys in terminal emulator - they all work except for the darned question mark key - both regular and alt read as a tilde.
I guess that having the question mark as a hardware key is something that terminal emulators aren't coded for...very few phones have that actual hardware key.
I got a feeling that if you remap the alt character to another key it'll work - it may or may not, but that's where i'd start.
This is one of those "I should look into that" but haven't found the time to do so, maybe check the keylayout mod guide in the dev section to start tinkering with it.
It's on my long list of things to do with this phone, my recent obsession with trying to overclock without kernel source kinda pushed everything else to the side.
Someone will probably get around to this before I do, but if not sooner or later i'll puzzle it out.
Thanx buddy for the reply!! My obsession is this forum... and my daughter of course
I hope you figure out the OC as well! Boy I wish I could help but I don't know how to. Where do you think I should start? Where should a noob begin to learn how to do anything...o_0 lol
You're honestly in the best place to start. XDA is home to some...thinking about it i'd say most... of the people online across all the random messageboards, news postings and whatnot who are all into the same thing and realize that by sharing what we know we can all work on bits and pieces of the larger picture.
Ever since I found XDA, I realized this was the place I was always looking for on the internet. Some of the most learned and skilled people i've met across the internet are scattered around these forums, and I found their works here.
The best advice to anyone new coming to XDA or trying to learn here, specifically, is that since so many people share so much, it's absolutely overwhelming the first time you wander around the XDA forums.
Use the search feature, as everyone rightly suggests, but the one thing that people never get right is managing their excitement.
You're home, you found the place where there are so many answers to and relating to your question, you get giddy. I know I did.
Resist the urge to just dive in and start asking questions. Put away your need to have the answer right now - I know it's just your nature, it's the tendency of people...any people...to just act like that. It's how we've progressed as a species, the aggresive need to know, solve, conquer...right this second.
That's wrong. When I found XDA, I browsed here for a while...sometimes for specific answers, other times just randomly through all the forums looking at...well...whatever random stuff I could find.
The thing about search is, it's great if you want a specific answer, because you keep finding more keywords and phrases to track down that will eventually lead you to the information you seek.
If you can't find the answer here at XDA, your quest to find it on your own without asking will turn up the people you could ask to help figure it out - something you miss just asking for it or exclusively using search.
Basically, just don't be too eager. The boards are way too big, populated by people that want to share what they know, so the amount of information here is too much to get through in one sitting. The first time I found this place I didn't leave my keyboard for more then a few minutes for almost 6 days.
I registered because I finally had something that I could share. My first device was the Nook Color, and by the time I got one the forums were jumping and so many choices for what you could do and how to do it were there ... it was my first android device and development was progressing so fast I couldn't keep up with learning it all from the ground up.
I stopped and focused on some topic I could expand on or in some way contribute, and it ended up being pretty in depth testing on MicroSD cards. I had a handful laying around, and running the Nook Color from the memory card instead of the internal memory will pass or fail depending on the memory card...and the one you instinctively want is wrong.
So, use the search function before posting something specific, don't forget to browse sometimes if you have some free time, it's like treasure hunting.
When I realized what this device ( MT4GS ) was capable of after coming to the MT4GS forums here to research if I really did want it or not...the TV-OUT thread was my seller. I am spellbound by this device, there's nothing else like it on the market at the moment.
I just couldn't miss out on playing with what I think will be the prototype model of what all phones will strive to do as technologies get assimilated across phones and carriers.
Being able to walk up to a TV and use the phone as not only an interactive game controller, but the console itself as well - with the TV bit being done so well that it's something you don't even have to think about other then if you want to or not. No special set up, just plug and play. I'm a fan.
But you know what? It's an unlisted feature that's rumored/probably true/unfinished in the phone.
( haven't looked into this in a while, maybe untrue but I found out about it here at XDA and remember reading that somewhere...every T-mobile rep i've seen has this phone, I talk to every one, and not a single one of them knew they could plug their device into a TV, let alone have some intense gaming experiences.
Not bad for something that's not mentioned - this should have been the selling point for the phone.
Thing is, without XDA, I wouldn't know how to do a fraction of what I know how to do with Android. Just sifting through everything here has taught me so much, but you have to have the patience to sit and take your time learning. Otherwise, even if you pull it off, six months from now you'll have to probably start over tracking down what you read before to do it again.
The more detailed and accurate the information that everyone posts, the more we all learn together.
Know what the big secret is, that I try to tell everyone?
The best way to cement the knowledge you've gained into your brain is to try to teach it to someone else. They'll think of questions you might never, approach from different perspectives with different tactics, and challenge you to know it well enough to be able to answer something you haven't thought about before on the spot.
I've been studying my whole life to be a teacher when I get older and can't hack physical stuff anymore, and try to freely teach anyone anything I know. The more I educate others, the more they educate me, and the more instinctively I know whatever we were working on.
Let me reiterate, again from a different perspective with different reasoning, the only way you learn something is to have the patience to do it - but the same goes for teaching. You have to have the patience to sit there and let the student get the answer, and the restraint to not give it to them and make them work for it so they remember it longer.
Analogies are king in getting through to people, but to be able to use analogies effectively for random people you have to be at least semi-educated on, well, everything.
Take a job in a retail store, any local big box popular electronics store. Sell computers, smart phones, or things like that. Then try to relate how the computer works to everyone you explain it to. Once you know some subject they are familiar with that you know, you can compare like functions to give them understandings.
Do yourself a favor - the next time you go to sit down in front of a television, pick up a book instead. (bonus points if you also grab a thesaurus)
Vocabulary and the contents of the thesaurus are the primary tools you need to use well for search. Forget all the ways a search engine works for you and remember that you need to not only search what you're looking for, but all the other ways of saying or describing what you want.
If you search fire, you get one set of results. What about ember, blaze, smolder, incinerate, char, smoke, fuel, tinder...etc...
If you have to look up all those synonyms every time you want to search for something, not only does it take longer (impatience again) but you are less likely to actually do it because of all the extra steps you have to take.
Phrase your posts well, try to punctualize, capitalize, and generally make what you're saying presentable. It takes me longer to decipher some internet shorthand, because they aren't acronyms I study. It hurts me on messageboards, but helps keep my vocabulary instinctively clean elsewhere.
On that turn, i'm more likely to read and/or respond to someone who actually took enough time to write their post, instead of just scratching out the first string of letters that looked close to some resemblance of the words they were trying to write.
( I know that's extreme, but that's another teaching tool, exploring extremes and understanding boundaries and capability - the foundation for your ability to reason )
So, you caught me at a time where i'm writing a curriculum for learning how to learn, techniques and approaches and such for someone I am going to start teaching android to. As much as it seems like i'm rambling here, all my postings tonight have been sprinkled with little methods or things to do to increase your speed, accuracy and ability to learn itself because that's what i'm working on right this minute.
It's been a long, hard, physical week at work. While rewarding and I feel great about what i've done, my body is not so happy at the moment. Trying to get into a new project with my MT4GS tonight is probably pushing it, so instead i'm just sitting here writing up what i've learned about learning, typing to me is very relaxing and keeps me active in spirit while mostly resting in the physical sense.
This is why they say knowledge is power, because you have to build knowledge on other knowledge. The more you understand and exploit the learning process to work for you, consciously and directly, the more natural and fluid it becomes.
If you learn what you need to learn to learn better (say that 3 times fast) you will become more efficient - and that's part of why we all get together here to do this stuff to our phones.
It's challenging, it's fun, it's a never-ending exercise in discovering cool new things or flat out creating brand new ideas of your own.
Part of what's been feeding my excitement with this phone, besides it's indisputable awesomeness, is the fact that it's new and there's an air of freshness to all the time being put into it. It's not like my last device where I showed up and found all the answers, this time I get to find and share some of them.
But that's the constant state of learning, the browsing all over XDA, setting up specific projects (tonight i'll learn how to make a livewallpaper, etc...) and creating manageable, short term goals along the road to a bigger destination.
The destination is reached much more interestingly with others, and when we all get there it's one big party together. This goal is made easier and sooner the more people that play.
Another thing is, I try to share what I post as thoroughly and accurately as possible. 2 Great reasons to take an extra minute and check something, or look it up again to make sure that it's right.
1-Someone else can build off your solid base, and spend less time learning what you were trying to convey
2-If i'm wrong, someone will speak up. There are so many learned people here, someone will see what I did wrong and if not why, someone else can probably explain it or get us started on finding out why.
So please, don't hesitate to correct me on something if you know i'm wrong. we all benefit from it, and is part of the motivation to be as thorough as I try to be.
Hope that the length of this post is justified by the content I tried to convey, you caught me in a typing mood with an open-ended question.
Blue6IX said:
You're honestly in the best place to start. XDA is home to some...thinking about it i'd say most... of the people online across all the random messageboards, news postings and whatnot who are all into the same thing and realize that by sharing what we know we can all work on bits and pieces of the larger picture.
Ever since I found XDA, I realized this was the place I was always looking for on the internet. Some of the most learned and skilled people i've met across the internet are scattered around these forums, and I found their works here.
The best advice to anyone new coming to XDA or trying to learn here, specifically, is that since so many people share so much, it's absolutely overwhelming the first time you wander around the XDA forums.
Use the search feature, as everyone rightly suggests, but the one thing that people never get right is managing their excitement.
You're home, you found the place where there are so many answers to and relating to your question, you get giddy. I know I did.
Resist the urge to just dive in and start asking questions. Put away your need to have the answer right now - I know it's just your nature, it's the tendency of people...any people...to just act like that. It's how we've progressed as a species, the aggresive need to know, solve, conquer...right this second.
That's wrong. When I found XDA, I browsed here for a while...sometimes for specific answers, other times just randomly through all the forums looking at...well...whatever random stuff I could find.
The thing about search is, it's great if you want a specific answer, because you keep finding more keywords and phrases to track down that will eventually lead you to the information you seek.
If you can't find the answer here at XDA, your quest to find it on your own without asking will turn up the people you could ask to help figure it out - something you miss just asking for it or exclusively using search.
Basically, just don't be too eager. The boards are way too big, populated by people that want to share what they know, so the amount of information here is too much to get through in one sitting. The first time I found this place I didn't leave my keyboard for more then a few minutes for almost 6 days.
I registered because I finally had something that I could share. My first device was the Nook Color, and by the time I got one the forums were jumping and so many choices for what you could do and how to do it were there ... it was my first android device and development was progressing so fast I couldn't keep up with learning it all from the ground up.
I stopped and focused on some topic I could expand on or in some way contribute, and it ended up being pretty in depth testing on MicroSD cards. I had a handful laying around, and running the Nook Color from the memory card instead of the internal memory will pass or fail depending on the memory card...and the one you instinctively want is wrong.
So, use the search function before posting something specific, don't forget to browse sometimes if you have some free time, it's like treasure hunting.
When I realized what this device ( MT4GS ) was capable of after coming to the MT4GS forums here to research if I really did want it or not...the TV-OUT thread was my seller. I am spellbound by this device, there's nothing else like it on the market at the moment.
I just couldn't miss out on playing with what I think will be the prototype model of what all phones will strive to do as technologies get assimilated across phones and carriers.
Being able to walk up to a TV and use the phone as not only an interactive game controller, but the console itself as well - with the TV bit being done so well that it's something you don't even have to think about other then if you want to or not. No special set up, just plug and play. I'm a fan.
But you know what? It's an unlisted feature that's rumored/probably true/unfinished in the phone.
( haven't looked into this in a while, maybe untrue but I found out about it here at XDA and remember reading that somewhere...every T-mobile rep i've seen has this phone, I talk to every one, and not a single one of them knew they could plug their device into a TV, let alone have some intense gaming experiences.
Not bad for something that's not mentioned - this should have been the selling point for the phone.
Thing is, without XDA, I wouldn't know how to do a fraction of what I know how to do with Android. Just sifting through everything here has taught me so much, but you have to have the patience to sit and take your time learning. Otherwise, even if you pull it off, six months from now you'll have to probably start over tracking down what you read before to do it again.
The more detailed and accurate the information that everyone posts, the more we all learn together.
Know what the big secret is, that I try to tell everyone?
The best way to cement the knowledge you've gained into your brain is to try to teach it to someone else. They'll think of questions you might never, approach from different perspectives with different tactics, and challenge you to know it well enough to be able to answer something you haven't thought about before on the spot.
I've been studying my whole life to be a teacher when I get older and can't hack physical stuff anymore, and try to freely teach anyone anything I know. The more I educate others, the more they educate me, and the more instinctively I know whatever we were working on.
Let me reiterate, again from a different perspective with different reasoning, the only way you learn something is to have the patience to do it - but the same goes for teaching. You have to have the patience to sit there and let the student get the answer, and the restraint to not give it to them and make them work for it so they remember it longer.
Analogies are king in getting through to people, but to be able to use analogies effectively for random people you have to be at least semi-educated on, well, everything.
Take a job in a retail store, any local big box popular electronics store. Sell computers, smart phones, or things like that. Then try to relate how the computer works to everyone you explain it to. Once you know some subject they are familiar with that you know, you can compare like functions to give them understandings.
Do yourself a favor - the next time you go to sit down in front of a television, pick up a book instead. (bonus points if you also grab a thesaurus)
Vocabulary and the contents of the thesaurus are the primary tools you need to use well for search. Forget all the ways a search engine works for you and remember that you need to not only search what you're looking for, but all the other ways of saying or describing what you want.
If you search fire, you get one set of results. What about ember, blaze, smolder, incinerate, char, smoke, fuel, tinder...etc...
If you have to look up all those synonyms every time you want to search for something, not only does it take longer (impatience again) but you are less likely to actually do it because of all the extra steps you have to take.
Phrase your posts well, try to punctualize, capitalize, and generally make what you're saying presentable. It takes me longer to decipher some internet shorthand, because they aren't acronyms I study. It hurts me on messageboards, but helps keep my vocabulary instinctively clean elsewhere.
On that turn, i'm more likely to read and/or respond to someone who actually took enough time to write their post, instead of just scratching out the first string of letters that looked close to some resemblance of the words they were trying to write.
( I know that's extreme, but that's another teaching tool, exploring extremes and understanding boundaries and capability - the foundation for your ability to reason )
So, you caught me at a time where i'm writing a curriculum for learning how to learn, techniques and approaches and such for someone I am going to start teaching android to. As much as it seems like i'm rambling here, all my postings tonight have been sprinkled with little methods or things to do to increase your speed, accuracy and ability to learn itself because that's what i'm working on right this minute.
It's been a long, hard, physical week at work. While rewarding and I feel great about what i've done, my body is not so happy at the moment. Trying to get into a new project with my MT4GS tonight is probably pushing it, so instead i'm just sitting here writing up what i've learned about learning, typing to me is very relaxing and keeps me active in spirit while mostly resting in the physical sense.
This is why they say knowledge is power, because you have to build knowledge on other knowledge. The more you understand and exploit the learning process to work for you, consciously and directly, the more natural and fluid it becomes.
If you learn what you need to learn to learn better (say that 3 times fast) you will become more efficient - and that's part of why we all get together here to do this stuff to our phones.
It's challenging, it's fun, it's a never-ending exercise in discovering cool new things or flat out creating brand new ideas of your own.
Part of what's been feeding my excitement with this phone, besides it's indisputable awesomeness, is the fact that it's new and there's an air of freshness to all the time being put into it. It's not like my last device where I showed up and found all the answers, this time I get to find and share some of them.
But that's the constant state of learning, the browsing all over XDA, setting up specific projects (tonight i'll learn how to make a livewallpaper, etc...) and creating manageable, short term goals along the road to a bigger destination.
The destination is reached much more interestingly with others, and when we all get there it's one big party together. This goal is made easier and sooner the more people that play.
Another thing is, I try to share what I post as thoroughly and accurately as possible. 2 Great reasons to take an extra minute and check something, or look it up again to make sure that it's right.
1-Someone else can build off your solid base, and spend less time learning what you were trying to convey
2-If i'm wrong, someone will speak up. There are so many learned people here, someone will see what I did wrong and if not why, someone else can probably explain it or get us started on finding out why.
So please, don't hesitate to correct me on something if you know i'm wrong. we all benefit from it, and is part of the motivation to be as thorough as I try to be.
Hope that the length of this post is justified by the content I tried to convey, you caught me in a typing mood with an open-ended question.
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You are king of long statements.
Sent from my Undeadk9's Senseless ROM using xda premium
[email protected] said:
Undeadk9... what an honer to reply to you. I've read all your posts. I wanna flash your latest Senseless..Sounds fast. I myself would like to thank you for all the hard work you put into this forum. You do a wonderful job. Your posts and comments mean alot. I'm such a noob but love phones and cpu's. I really would love to fluently learn how to do anything that involves those things,but have no idea where to begin. What would you suggest I learn? I ask because you know what your talking about. Do you mind if i contact you in a pm or something just to bleed your brain sometime? Think about it. Thanks again!!
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Honor? Im just an every day joe with ubuntu 11.04 and rom kitchen sprinkled with java on my laptop. that also makes roms. Lol.
Sent from my Undeadk9's Senseless ROM using xda premium
The only way I got around not being able to type the / character on my mt4gs keyboard in the terminal emulator when I flashed modaco was to type out the command line in a text message, copy, then paste in the emulator. Works like a charm.
Sent from my Xoom using xda premium
Bravo Blue6lX. That was very well written. Amazing. I personally can relate to a majority of what you spoke of in this post,my favorite being,"the one thing that people never get right is managing their excitement". I am a poster boy for that very same thing. Even in the real world I struggle with that. I have to take a second to breath,lol. When I signed on to this forum I read the rules and began my quest to further educate myself in Android... baby crying gotta run thanks again your posts are very inspiring! I enjoy reading them very much, your a wise man. Thesaurus on the list for the day!! Have a great day
[email protected] said:
Bravo Blue6lX. That was very well written. Amazing. I personally can relate to a majority of what you spoke of in this post,my favorite being,"the one thing that people never get right is managing their excitement". I am a poster boy for that very same thing. Even in the real world I struggle with that. I have to take a second to breath,lol. When I signed on to this forum I read the rules and began my quest to further educate myself in Android... baby crying gotta run thanks again your posts are very inspiring! I enjoy reading them very much, your a wise man. Thesaurus on the list for the day!! Have a great day
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Glad you got what I was trying to say. Looking back at it now that i've slept, showered, and got a pot of coffee in me i'd have written that a lot differently. I passed out right after posting that, when I got home I was so physically exhausted...yet too mentally awake to sleep. Normally i'd just browse around learning stuff on the computer and be rested, but I really needed to actually sleep.
I figure as long as I make sure anything I post in the developers section is as concise and clear as I can make it, what gets posted in these other sections can be a bit more general, but that posting was a bit convoluted even by my standards.
Not to drag your thread too far away from the original question, but once you free yourself from the "answer right now" impulse, XDA has several lifetimes worth of stuff to learn how to do just sitting here waiting for you to discover it.
The best way to get started is to just pick something, something small, and learn how to do it completely. Then go on from there. The other day I wanted to spend like a half an hour getting some icons...but one thing led to another which led to photoshop and a few hours later I had a new boot animation for my device I made from scratch.
It's not what I came here to do or to learn, wasn't even in my head when I sat down at the computer. But, I let myself just wander and followed the direction my interest evolved in and that's where I ended up. Sometimes that's the way it goes, and it was a fun experience.
You lose the opportunity for something like that to happen when you just ask a question and get spoon-fed an answer. I'm a big fan of the idea that if you really want to get something done, then just do it yourself. Why sit and wait for someone else to do it, while you could be spending that time doing it yourself. You need knowledge to be able to do that, though, and that's what XDA is a place to share.
The more quickly and completely you can process and assimilate the knowledge, the more you can learn in a shorter time with less frustration. It really pays to take the time to develop good habits and methods for learning.
The answer to whatever you want to know in most cases is not nearly as worthwhile as knowing how to figure out that answer.
Sometimes you just need a quick solution to fix something broken, the HTCLoggers security vulnerability is a great example of a valid "need a fix now" situation. Much thanks to undeadk9 for a quick resolution to that issue.
...but if it's not mission critical to do whatever it is right this second, why rush?
The easier you come by the answer, the easier you forget it.
That's why knowing how other related activities can help you across the spectrum of things you get involved in is important. Reading is a great example.
If you read books by a variety of authors, you pick up different ways of saying the same thing, are exposed to different words and so on. When you sit down to search for something, you now have many more avenues to travel in the breadth of keywords and phrases to use before hitting a dictionary or thesaurus or something. Consciously encouraging that fringe benefit of the activity of reading compounds it's effectiveness, because you will intentionally seek out authors that write differently then each other and maximize your gain for time invested.
Back to the subject at hand, the issue with terminal emulator. There are a couple of threads about this issue right here in the MT4GS section of XDA. If you browse through them, you will find different pieces of the puzzle sitting there.
Furthermore, you'll find people who have tested different terminal emulators, so you can ask them what they've found, or encourage them to share their findings to add information to the issue. You'll also find the other people interested in solving the problem, so sooner or later the right combination of people with the motivation, skills, and time to invest will come together in a thread and generate a solution.
...and that's why I love the open source community mindset of XDA. The gratification of "hey, look what I found!" is here, because it's all worthwhile. The puzzle isn't put together until we have all the pieces, and each one that is found and shared is one less to find. For the community as a whole, what you've found is just as important as how you share it.
Some people are great at figuring out what the puzzle pieces are. Others are great at creating those pieces. Other people shine at putting those pieces together to finish the picture. All those talents are expressed to some degree by the people coming through here, this place is amazing.
Now consider, if you just ask a question and get an answer, well, that's great for you or anyone with that exact problem. But for other people in the future trying to figure out that problem, that may not be so helpful.
What if someone comes through with the same problem, but a new firmware version or something where the solution doesn't work anymore. Generally speaking, the method used to find that solution would work again to generate a new, updated answer, but since only the answer and not the method was given...
So the "need it now" attitude really just impairs everyone's ability to move forward past a certain point, because then it gets into people asking questions that have already been answered...sometimes on that very page in the forum...because they didn't take a minute to see if the question had already been fielded and resolved.
I know XDA is huge and can be overwhelming, but having been with the MT4GS since there weren't many posts in this section of XDA, I already see it happening here too. It's just human nature, and some people don't even realize it.
So i'll leave it there, since you were asking about how to get the most out of using XDA, and this is just something i've observed in my time here.
"The answer to whatever you want to know in most cases is not nearly as worthwhile as knowing how to figure out that answer".
"The easier you come by the answer, the easier you forget it".
"So the "need it now" attitude really just impairs everyone's ability to move forward past a certain point".
Your a great teacher Blue6lx! I read your comments that you posted on this page more than a few times. I would have replied sooner if my daughter would've let me
I would like to know more of anything you want to say,so I'll be hearing from you! One way or another!
I ended up sliding the keyboard in and out for that since I am able to use the onscreen keyboard to use the "/". I Slide out for faster typing for everything else.
[email protected] said:
I ended up sliding the keyboard in and out for that since I am able to use the onscreen keyboard to use the / Slide out for faster typing,on screen for"/"
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While that works, it's an ugly solution. Don't worry, it's what I do too.
I remember reading a while ago here...someone swung by and asked if there had been any problems with the cable that carries the information from the keyboard half of the phone to the screen half.
Sliding in and out wears that cable out over time, and while it's way too early to see any issues arising from that cable wearing out yet because of how new the phone is, it's something to keep in mind.
It's a moving part, a piece of metal that bends (the wiring) when it's slid up and down. Even though it's designed to do it, from everything i've ever learned about physics and metal fatigue I know it'll wear out one day if the phone lasts that long.
I don't mind using it, it was made to take some amount of sliding, but as a developer using the phone in ways it wasn't exactly intended for, you have to be aware of the ways you create additional stresses on the device.
Do you think a normal user slides the phone out as much in a whole weeks worth of playing with it the amount of time you do in a single day working with terminal emulator?
Everything (except the stock battery) about this phone is pretty top of the line, I highly doubt that HTC cheaped out on a part they knew would wear out eventually on it's own, so don't think you're gonna break your cable tomorrow because you slid the keyboard out.
Just be aware of the above-normal stresses you can put on your device over the long term once you become more then a consumer-grade user.
So, yes, it's a solution, but not very elegant in it's execution.
My thoughts are the same. "Ugly solution".
From what I have observed, the text savvy user loves sliding that keyboard in and out. I have no doubt they realize this and built it to last... Let's hope they did not skimp in that area of their development
No one has said it. Try swype. I've used it a few times to get some unresponsive or jumbled as in getting ~ instead / to work or a pesky capital to stay lower case as in I and i .
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