Would you adopt-a-newb? I'm coming from webOS.

[speedtouch]

I just purchased a brand new HTC EVO 3D off Ebay. It should arrive in the mail on Wednesday or Thursday. On PreCentral I used to adopt newbies and make myself available to them via PM, should they have questions they didn't want to ask in the forum. I helped *a lot* of webOS newbs this way and they were really thankful.

Would one of you experienced Android or EVO 3D folks care to adopt me? I promise I am a good listener, an excellent searcher of the boards, and I read everything. I know I will have questions that may seem dumb to you, but please bear with me. I am coming to Android after two years and two months of exclusive webOS use.

I am going to learn this. Right now I am researching how to turn the EVO 3D into a wifi hotspot, without having the official Sprint WiFi Hotspot app on my phone. I need this function so that I can provide Internet to my HP DeadPad. I see there is a ROM that has this capability. I don't know much about ROMs, so I am going to research them as well. It would be a great help if there was someone kind enough to adopt me so that I may ping you from time to time in a PM.

 

[tes5884]

I just purchased a brand new HTC EVO 3D off Ebay. It should arrive in the mail on Wednesday or Thursday. On PreCentral I used to adopt newbies and make myself available to them via PM, should they have questions they didn't want to ask in the forum. I helped *a lot* of webOS newbs this way and they were really thankful.

Would one of you experienced Android or EVO 3D folks care to adopt me? I promise I am a good listener, an excellent searcher of the boards, and I read everything. I know I will have questions that may seem dumb to you, but please bear with me. I am coming to Android after two years and two months of exclusive webOS use.

I am going to learn this. Right now I am researching how to turn the EVO 3D into a wifi hotspot, without having the official Sprint WiFi Hotspot app on my phone. I need this function so that I can provide Internet to my HP DeadPad. I see there is a ROM that has this capability. I don't know much about ROMs, so I am going to research them as well. It would be a great help if there was someone kind enough to adopt me so that I may ping you from time to time in a PM.

With pleasure email me at tes5884 at gmail

 

[anon(143571)]

If you need any help, just PM me your email, gtalk (preferred) or phone number.

 

[wit_ben]

First off, I love the idea of adopting a newbie. Heaven knows I've spent countless hours reading and figuring stuff out and testing and searching and reading some more. I've even dared to ask questions here and there. Sometimes I get useless answers like "search moar n00b", but other times I get real responses that are helpful, insightful, and therefore valuable.

Pleasantries aside, let me try to help you a little in your quest. First, ROMs. Well, let me back up a little. Before there were ROMs there was root. And then there was unlocked bootloaders, and then custom recovery. To root your EVO 3D see any number of guides here. For unlocking, see the HTC official unlock utility or revolutionary.io for help. The process of rooting and unlocking the bootloader (which allows for custom recoveries, which allow for custom ROMs) can be specific to your device, so read up on that. I can't help you much as I don't have your device. I have a Nexus S. Just be aware that unlocking the bootloader can void part or all of your warranty. So read more.

Once you've gained root access, unlocked the bootloader, and flashed a custom recovery, you may now flash custom ROMs. I believe many ROMs are still in early stages, as the device is still fairly new. As such, expect some bugs and glitches here and there. Most ROMs will have a fairly complete description of what differentiates them, what works, and what doesn't. Others will be variations of other ROMs, i.e. "kangs" so in addition to reading about that particular kang, it'd be helpful to also read about the ROM it's based off of.

Finally, Wifi hot-spot. Gaining root access will allow you to download apps for this from market, without requiring custom ROMs. Some ROMs like CyanogenMod have the feature built-in, but I don't believe CM is available for the E3D yet. Someone with Sprint may correct me on this, but it's possible Sprint is blocking the tethering feature altogether for those not using the official app. You might want to check into that as well.

For guides on how to do any part of this - rooting, unlocking, flashing, etc. - you can try these forums as well as XDA. Remember to look at your specific device, or perhaps closely related devices like the Sensation, since some procedures are device-specific.

Feel free to join IRC channels if you like (#cyanogenmod can be helpful sometimes), and don't hesitate to ask questions. You may PM me if you like, but you're likely to get just as much help posting on the forums, often even faster than I can respond.

Welcome to the family, friend.

Benjamin

 

[speedtouch]

With pleasure email me at tes5884 at gmail

Thank you!

 

[speedtouch]

If you need any help, just PM me your email, gtalk (preferred) or phone number.

Thank you. I'll probably stick to PMs. Another person just PMed me, but I can't reply back yet...not enough posts. Thanks again, Mikey.

 

[newboyx]

I am more than willing to help out. The adopting a newb is a great idea. Feek free to PM if needed. I am currently rooted and running a custom ROM, if you need some help there.

 

[speedtouch]

First off, I love the idea of adopting a newbie. Heaven knows I've spent countless hours reading and figuring stuff out and testing and searching and reading some more. I've even dared to ask questions here and there. Sometimes I get useless answers like "search moar n00b", but other times I get real responses that are helpful, insightful, and therefore valuable.

Pleasantries aside, let me try to help you a little in your quest. First, ROMs. Well, let me back up a little. Before there were ROMs there was root. And then there was unlocked bootloaders, and then custom recovery. To root your EVO 3D see any number of guides here. For unlocking, see the HTC official unlock utility or revolutionary.io for help. The process of rooting and unlocking the bootloader (which allows for custom recoveries, which allow for custom ROMs) can be specific to your device, so read up on that. I can't help you much as I don't have your device. I have a Nexus S. Just be aware that unlocking the bootloader can void part or all of your warranty. So read more.

Once you've gained root access, unlocked the bootloader, and flashed a custom recovery, you may now flash custom ROMs. I believe many ROMs are still in early stages, as the device is still fairly new. As such, expect some bugs and glitches here and there. Most ROMs will have a fairly complete description of what differentiates them, what works, and what doesn't. Others will be variations of other ROMs, i.e. "kangs" so in addition to reading about that particular kang, it'd be helpful to also read about the ROM it's based off of.

Finally, Wifi hot-spot. Gaining root access will allow you to download apps for this from market, without requiring custom ROMs. Some ROMs like CyanogenMod have the feature built-in, but I don't believe CM is available for the E3D yet. Someone with Sprint may correct me on this, but it's possible Sprint is blocking the tethering feature altogether for those not using the official app. You might want to check into that as well.

For guides on how to do any part of this - rooting, unlocking, flashing, etc. - you can try these forums as well as XDA. Remember to look at your specific device, or perhaps closely related devices like the Sensation, since some procedures are device-specific.

Feel free to join IRC channels if you like (#cyanogenmod can be helpful sometimes), and don't hesitate to ask questions. You may PM me if you like, but you're likely to get just as much help posting on the forums, often even faster than I can respond.

Welcome to the family, friend.

Benjamin

Awesome post. Thanks so much.

Ok, as I am a Solaris admin, I do understand root and its importance and danger. You mentioned unlocked bootloaders and custom recovery. There's an acronym guide here somewhere, I am going to see if I can find those two. My educated guess is that an unlocked bootloader means the bootloader will look for and boot any environment you tell it to, not just the official environment as provided by HTC/Sprint. No clue on the custom recovery. Thanks for the link on rooting.

Thanks for the excellent information on what it takes to get to custom ROMs. Other than the custom recovery it makes total sense. Heh, never heard of a kang before...good to know.

It looks like if I root the EVO 3D, then I can easily (or somewhat easily) get WiFi tethering rocking. It would appear my quest for WiFi tethering does not require me to go the custom ROM route as I thought it did initially. Good!

A fellow AC member PM'd me a link to the XDA forum dedicated to the EVO 3D. I never heard of XDA, so that was very appreciated. I'll be sure to delve into the XDA forums over the next few days before my EVO 3D arrives.

I do IRC! I'll have to join in sometime. It's great to know there's some Android channels out there. Thanks for the offer of PMs, I added you to my contacts.

Benjamin, thanks so much for the great explanations and the warm welcome.

 

[speedtouch]

I am more than willing to help out. The adopting a newb is a great idea. Feek free to PM if needed. I am currently rooted and running a custom ROM, if you need some help there.

Hey thanks a lot! I have added you to my contacts.

 

[speedtouch]

Everyone, thanks a lot for your support. This is fantastic. There's nothing like the feeling of being completely lost in a new land of technology. Whew, it's a little overwhelming. I'll be sure to contact you all should I need the help (I am sure I will). I've still got several days to go before I receive my EVO 3D. I'm going to spend that time reading, reading, reading, and reading. And of course, the occasional (hopefully), PM to you guys.

Many thanks.

 

[Wiley_11]

I just purchased a brand new HTC EVO 3D off Ebay. It should arrive in the mail on Wednesday or Thursday. On PreCentral I used to adopt newbies and make myself available to them via PM, should they have questions they didn't want to ask in the forum. I helped *a lot* of webOS newbs this way and they were really thankful.

Would one of you experienced Android or EVO 3D folks care to adopt me? I promise I am a good listener, an excellent searcher of the boards, and I read everything. I know I will have questions that may seem dumb to you, but please bear with me. I am coming to Android after two years and two months of exclusive webOS use.

I am going to learn this. Right now I am researching how to turn the EVO 3D into a wifi hotspot, without having the official Sprint WiFi Hotspot app on my phone. I need this function so that I can provide Internet to my HP DeadPad. I see there is a ROM that has this capability. I don't know much about ROMs, so I am going to research them as well. It would be a great help if there was someone kind enough to adopt me so that I may ping you from time to time in a PM.

Congrats I think your going to find you've made an excellent choice for the long haul. I had a Pre for 2 years also but in about a day and a half you should be up to speed. I was and I'm not the sharpest crayon in the box.

Check out the first page of the sticky at the top "EVO 3D Support Group For Palm webOS Users" by Milo. At the bottom under Reference check out "webOS Users Guide To Android" by Milo. That and posting here will keep you busy until your toy shows up. For apps bookmark Android Market and Appbrain on your puter. For tethering there is Pda Net and Easy Tether (usb hookup) in the Market. I think they have free 30 day trial,that may help until you get rooting dialed in.

The stock keyboard sucks until you calibrate it. I still use it and like it but there are many choices for keyboards. To calibrate go to Settings>Language&Keyboard>Touch Input>Text Input>Calibration Tool.

There are great peeps here and I'm sure you will be well taken care of !! Get ready to be excited, after 2 months (almost) I still am.

 

[speedtouch]

Congrats I think your going to find you've made an excellent choice for the long haul. I had a Pre for 2 years also but in about a day and a half you should be up to speed. I was and I'm not the sharpest crayon in the box.

Check out the first page of the sticky at the top "EVO 3D Support Group For Palm webOS Users" by Milo. At the bottom under Reference check out "webOS Users Guide To Android" by Milo. That and posting here will keep you busy until your toy shows up. For apps bookmark Android Market and Appbrain on your puter. For tethering there is Pda Net and Easy Tether (usb hookup) in the Market. I think they have free 30 day trial,that may help until you get rooting dialed in.

The stock keyboard sucks until you calibrate it. I still use it and like it but there are many choices for keyboards. To calibrate go to Settings>Language&Keyboard>Touch Input>Text Input>Calibration Tool.

There are great peeps here and I'm sure you will be well taken care of !! Get ready to be excited, after 2 months (almost) I still am.

Hi, Wiley! Nice to see you 'round these parts, too. Thanks, I also think I made the right choice for the long haul. I needed something reliable and I've heard very good things about HTC. My brother has a very old HTC Hero and it's still chugging along just fine. My Pre is completely unreliable. It likes to shut off at night when I am on-call for work. Unacceptable.

I have read those Palm Support posts. Great stuff and very helpful! It's almost like someone knew we'd be bailing ship and trying to board the Android vessel. I'll find that "webOS Users guide to Android" and check it out.

You can browse the Android Market on your computer? Holy cow, that's awesome. I'm searching those two right now. Well, USB tethering is not what I need. I must have WiFi tethering for my HP DeadPad.

I'll be sure to calibrate the KB, didn't know that was necessary. Yeah, it definitely looks like I've got all the support I'll ever need here. I am excited. I am ready to have a reliable phone!

 

[Wiley_11]

Hi, Wiley! Nice to see you 'round these parts, too. Thanks, I also think I made the right choice for the long haul. I needed something reliable and I've heard very good things about HTC. My brother has a very old HTC Hero and it's still chugging along just fine. My Pre is completely unreliable. It likes to shut off at night when I am on-call for work. Unacceptable.

I have read those Palm Support posts. Great stuff and very helpful! It's almost like someone knew we'd be bailing ship and trying to board the Android vessel. I'll find that "webOS Users guide to Android" and check it out.

You can browse the Android Market on your computer? Holy cow, that's awesome. I'm searching those two right now. Well, USB tethering is not what I need. I must have WiFi tethering for my HP DeadPad.

I'll be sure to calibrate the KB, didn't know that was necessary. Yeah, it definitely looks like I've got all the support I'll ever need here. I am excited. I am ready to have a reliable phone!

Milo is gold plated in my book !!! There should be a sticker on the phone about calibration. lol

Seems like the 2 most liked keyboards are Swiftkey & Swype.

 

[likwidsoul]

Just a fair warning. I wouldn't suggest using tethering without the applicable plan that your service provider offers even though rooting will allow you to do so. Most providers are cracking down on this as they veiw it as stealing from them. It's your phone do with it what you see fit. If you chose to do so I will help with any problems that might arise just shoot me a pm. Have fun and welcome to the wonderful world of Android.

 

[speedtouch]

Milo is gold plated in my book !!! There should be a sticker on the phone about calibration. lol

Seems like the 2 most liked keyboards are Swiftkey & Swype.

Hehe, Milo sure does know what we webOSers would have questions on. Swiftkey and Swype, noted.

 

[speedtouch]

Just a fair warning. I wouldn't suggest using tethering without the applicable plan that your service provider offers even though rooting will allow you to do so. Most providers are cracking down on this as they veiw it as stealing from them. It's your phone do with it what you see fit. If you chose to do so I will help with any problems that might arise just shoot me a pm. Have fun and welcome to the wonderful world of Android.

I understand completely what you're saying. My WiFi tethering bandwidth needs are so low that it would easily be mistaken for regular phone use. I just looked at my Sprint account and on my last bill I used a whopping 35MB since the start of August 20 (yesterday). And that includes a full day of tethering to my DeadPad yesterday. I tether very rarely anyway, so I don't think I'll break even 1GB per month.

Thanks for the offer of help, you've been added to my contacts, too!

 

[Wiley_11]

Hehe, Milo sure does know what we webOSers would have questions on. Swiftkey and Swype, noted.

I don't know how he does it all, and he's everywhere.

Just wait till you hold the search key for 2 seconds and say... call so&so,text so&so,navigate to so&so. It's pretty saaweet. If you use gmail for your contacts they will show up about 5 to 10 minutes after activation.

 

[wit_ben]

****WARNING! LONG POST!****

I understand that after a while, you will get to know the community and will become familiar with different members' strong points, and you may wish to PM them with specific questions. I would encourage everyone, as much as possible, to post everything right here in the forums. That way the question is already answered for the next newbie that needs help. Just something to keep in mind.

Let me see if I can spare you some time and confusion. I'm sure others could explain this is much more technical detail, but I'll try to keep it simple and approachable. This is geared toward any newbie looking to get the most out of his shiny new Android device, so I apologize if some of this sounds weird to you.

1. Bootloaders: locked and unlocked.
Bootloaders are the most low-level environment on your phone that's available to users, as far as I know. It's somewhere between BIOS and GRUB for those of us familiar with such things. (If you don't what I'm talking about, just ignore that LOL.) It allows access to fastboot mode, which allows you to run various commands from your computer via the terminal. It also gives access to Recovery Mode. This is also akin to the recovery mode for some desktop OSes. More to come on that. By default, any new device will come with a locked bootloader. The technical details aren't important. What is important is that a locked bootloader will only work with stock recovery and stock firmware (ROM). To be able to flash a custom recovery, you must first unlock the bootloader.

You'll note it shows "S-OFF" (presumably "Security" though I could be wrong on that).

2. Recovery
Stock recovery allows just a few operations on your device. You can do a factory reset, flash an official ROM, and maybe a couple other things. You cannot make backups, partition an SD card, flash custom ROMs, etc. For this you need a custom recovery. The most popular (probably because it's the most supported) is ClockworkMod Recovery, developed by Koushik Dutta, aka koush of the CyanogenMod team. There are probably others out there, but CWM should be more than sufficient for your needs. Plus, using CWM has a couple other bonuses we'll get to later.

3. Android Market (aka Gold Mine)
http://market.android.com <-- awesome for PC browsing. You can even install apps directly to your device Over the Air (OTA) directly from the web. Super sweet! All you have to do is sign into the same account in your browser as you did on your device. If you have multiple devices you can choose which device to install each app to. You can purchase apps, rate, comment, etc., all from the web Market. It's awesome, really. That being said, here are a few apps that can make life easier if you're looking to tinker with your device, or even if you just want to get the most out of it.

3.1 ROM Manager
As the name implies, this is a simple, yet very powerful and feature-rich app that helps tremendously when you want to play with custom ROMs. It allows you to flash CWM directly (after you've unlocked the bootloader), perform backups, flash ROMs, and a few other things as well. There is a premium license you can get to unlock a bit more functionality, but the free app does quite a bit already.

3.2 Root Explorer
This is a file system browser that allows you to perform simple file system actions, such as copy/paste/delete/rename files, open text files for editing, play media files, and a few others. There are free file explorers out there, but this is my personal favorite, and if you've rooted your phone, Root Explorer will be able to access and perform actions on otherwise protected parts of the system.

3.3 Swiftp FTP Server
Call me lazy, but I just don't like having to plug my device into my computer to transfer files back and forth. This is a simple FTP server that will allow you to transfer files back forth to your computer over Wifi using any FTP client.

3.4 SwiftKey X
As you've heard, this is one of the most popular "traditional" tap-to-type keyboards (and my favorite of this type). Its word prediction is downright creepy sometimes, it's that good, and its error correction is also very good. Yeah, it costs money, but I think it's worth it.

Swype
This is it. It's gotta be one of the most popular input methods available on any platform. It's not for everybody, but I'm fairly certain you'll enjoy it. It comes pre-installed on your phone, but if you start flashing custom ROMs, you'll want to get the beta, since most custom ROMs don't (and shouldn't) have Swype included.

That's all I can think of for now. Like I said, feel free to ask questions if you don't understand something. I'd encourage you jump into an IRC channel for realtime help if you get stuck at some point in the rooting or unlocking process or something. We're always here to help too, so keep those questions coming!

P.S. Please overlook any misspellings, missing words, or grammatical errors. I tried to be careful, but I may have goofed in there somewhere.

 

[jraw23]

Just wanted to let you know that you will love your new phone. I upgraded from the pre when the evo 3d was released. I'll be honest there are times when I miss certain features that webos offered but all in all Android has so much more to offer.

There are a couple of threads on this forum that are geared towards those that are fleeing from webos and they really helped me out a lot. I know I haven't been with Android very long but if you have any questions feel free to drop me a pm.

As a former percentral user and recovering webos enthusiast I can feel your pain. So far everyone on here has been awesome and extremely helpful. I think you will grow to love this place just like precentral.

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk

 

[wit_ben]

There's another topic I wanted to cover. As usual when you have the openness and vast variety possible within a platform such as Android, I can't cover it in great detail, but I wanted to give a brief overview.

In your reading you'll come across such terms as HTC Sense, Samsung Touchwiz, MotoBLUR, stock Android, AOSP, etc. I'll try to clarify a little about the differences in the various manufacturer customizations of Android.

1. HTC Sense
As far as manufacturer customizations this one is by far the most popular. It's also one of the deepest, most complete OS modifications around. Nearly everything about the interface has been tweaked or modified in some way. It's not changed in anyway that will break the functionality of apps, and in some ways it actually adds functionality over stock Android. The latest Sense that you have on your E3D includes nifty things like the active lockscreen, complete with app shortcuts, widgets, and more. The dialer also provides smart dialing, meaning you can search by typing a contact's name right on the dialer. The notification pulldown has been modified to add toggles for a variety of things including wireless options (bluetooth, wifi, 4g, etc), sounds, and possibly more (haven't used Sense myself in a little while). Bundled with Sense are a few HTC apps, mostly centered around social networks. You'll find twitter, Facebook, etc more tightly integrated in Sense ROMs than in others.

A possible downside is that since HTC doesn't release the source for Sense, ROMs based on it can't be tweaked to quite the lengths that "stock" Android ROMs can, I guess. Some also say that Sense hogs too many resources. I don't know whether that's a big deal, since the E3D is such a beast of a phone, but it's up to your liking, I guess. There are still plenty of very good Sense-based ROMs, and if you like it, great! If not, well, that's what Android is all about - Choices!

2. Touchwiz
The Samsung offering. I won't spend much time here since this is the E3D forum. Suffice to say it's lighter than Sense and doesn't make as many changes. The flipside is that it also doesn't add as much.

3. MotoBLUR
Don't really know much about this one except everybody hates it. Again, no biggie since you've got an Evo.

4. Stock Android, aka AOSP (Android Open Source Project)
The "purest" form of Android. Compiled straight from the source code published by Google, these ROMs offer Android as envisioned by the Makers themselves. Many popular ROMs such CyanogenMod will the take the source code and tweak/modify/improve on/add to it to offer an experience close to stock Android, but with enhanced performance or added functionality. Truth be told, most stock-based ROMs, or AOSP-based as they're sometimes called, are usually based on CyanogenMod because the team that develops it puts out quality code and does a lot of the heavy lifting to get everything working on the devices.

Anyway, I hope this brief introduction to ROMs and custom interfaces helped answer a few questions you guys may have had. If something doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll try to clarify it better.

Benjamin