Installing Android On An O2 HTC HD2

Hey,

I set up an O2 Branded HTC HD2 for @JoeGarde to run Android yesterday.
It was pretty complicated and I never found a clear guide to the whole process while doing it, so I thought I'd toss a few notes that I made on here.

The first step, which wasn't mentioned anywhere was updating the ROM on the phone:

HTC's Support Site has the ROM updates for O2, Vodafone and Vanilla versions of the HD2.

(Along with being necessary to complete the install this update adds the ability to format the SD card, which will come in handy later)

Once the ROM was upgraded the next thing that needed to be upgraded was the radio image.

In order to install the Radio Image you need to have HSPL or HSPL2 Installed.
You get these from a HSPL Thread on the XDA-Developers forum:
Which one you choose is based on what version of SPL you have installed already, so read the instructions carefully.

Once HSPL is installed download an updated radio image from This HTC HD2 Radio ROM Thread. (I used the most recent one and that worked for me).

Install the image with this Custom RUU.

Once these updates are installed you should be ready to choose a build from the XDA HD2 Android Development Forum.
Follow the instructions that come with the build (here is where the ability to format your sd card from the phone may come in handy) and you're done!

Note:
This is a guide for the people who may have tried the first thing they found only to have the screen fade to black whenever they tried to boot their Android build.
These steps were found through trial and error.
I accept no responsibility for anything that happens to your phone while trying to follow them.
It is an assumption of this guide that you will read everything I have linked to.
If you find that I have some steps wrong or I have linked to something terribly out of date, please leave me a comment and I will fix it.
You will need to set up an account on XDA in order to download files there, if you could take the time to thank the people who's put in all the time and effort to make the tools you're using I'm sure they would appreciate it.

I hope this helps some lost soul find their way.

-Rory

Relax and talk phones

Hi there reader,

It is time to sit back, relax and have a nice sip of root beer.
You don't have any root beer? Well then it sucks to be you.

Along with root beer I have a newly rooted Google Nexus One (root phone?).
Why did I root my phone?
Simple really: I was sick of the contacts icon.
You see the contacts icon seems so unnecessary.
When you've seen the slick design of the HTC Sense UI the native google one seems clunky.
Of course I was being a complete idiot, as both the Cyanogen Mod ROM and the Modaco ROM don't change the stock interface*. (The screen grab on the left is actually the Modaco ROM).

What rooting my phone has done for me is allow me to install great root-only applications this includes ROM Manger, which I used to switch from Cyanogen Mod to Modaco (and am currently switching back with) and the screen grabbing tool I used to take that screenshot.
I'll continue to play around with it and install the HTC Desire ROM when I'm sure it's stable.

*Technically this isn't true Cyanogen changes the interface a little bit, it adds more blue and makes the WindowShade (Notification Pulldown) transparent.

Thanks for reading!

-Rory

Nexus And Me - Podcasts

I am a big fan of podcasts, in fact I listen to them so much I occasionally  go a week without listening to any music.

When I got my Nokia it was a revolution to be able to download podcasts directly to my device.

But Nokia's podcatcher has some issues:

It is difficult to set up - URLs must be put in manually, because the built-in search only finds podcasts that were around four years ago.

The most crippling problem however is that Nokia podcatcher occasionally just stops working. It simply dies and refuses to open again. The only solution is to hard reset the phone.

On Android you have choices, lots of choices.

After trying a few different podcatching apps (including listen and mypod) I have settled on a very good free app called MediaFly.

Mediafly is great because it allows you to:

Manage your podcasts online.

Stream/download podcasts.

Stream/download video podcasts.

So... mediafly literally does everything I want and more.

Mediafly does have issues though:

As with every podcasting application I've tried on Android, Mediafly occasionally fails to find updates I know (because I subscribe to the same RSS feed in Google Reader) are out. (This issue might be caused by Meteor, my carried blocking ports. But I definitely never had it on the 5800.)

-Rory

Nexus And Me - Twitter

I know it might seem odd to start with Twitter, but ever since I first purchased a data plan some months ago the functionality and quality of my Twitter application has been paramount for me.

The Symbian OS has what I consider to the be the best Twitter application in the world.

It's called Gravity and its developer Janole has become something of a hero to me by keeping his users up to date on his latest activities on his twitter stream, and generally fighting the good fight for Symbian.

On the NexusOne there are many, many twitter applications. I have tried a few, here are my problems with them:

Failure to connect:
Several clients simply refuse to work on my data network the two best ones are:
Seesmic & Tweetcaster

Some clients worked but were overly reliant on the menu button, which kills it for me for example:
TwitterRide & Swift

The clients I use can thus be said to have run the gauntlet they are:
Twidroid: The old reliable of the android platform, Twidroid is a favourite of many users who have been using android since the G1 came out.
Twidroid can be relied upon to work, it's not pretty and the on-screen buttons are too damn small but it always works.
&
Twicca: My current favourite is the very dark and very cool Twicca. Twicca offers more customisation that almost any of the other options. It has a funny way of finding tweets but not loading them until you go to look at them. Sadly the buttons are still a bit small and the menu button is relied upon a bit too much for my liking. (You can sort of work around it with the back button).
But when it comes right down to it Twicca is just beautiful, you can even colour-code your tweets.

I don't have root access to take a screenshot, so here is one from the web. (The developer is Japanese, so they have a big following in Asia).