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How to Root HTC Hero CDMA and Flash CM7

in HTC Hero CDMA

This guide will explain how to root your HTC Hero CDMA (the Hero that you get from Sprint and other CDMA carriers) and install the highly popular CyanogenMod 7 ROM on HTC Hero as well. First, though, I will explain how to back up your contacts, MMS and SMS, and your call history so you can restore all the data after you install CM7. There are many reasons why it is an excellent idea to root the HTC Hero, and one of those reasons includes the ability to prolong the life and usability of your Hero, because as you may have already experienced, today’s Android applications require stronger processors than older phones such as the Hero has. So, without further ado, here’s the guide to get you started with rooting the HTC Hero.

First, you will need to download this file, which will be the program that you use to back up your call log, text messages and contacts to your SD card. Once the file is downloaded, please connect your HTC Hero to your computer via the provided USB cable and enable USB mass storage. Then, copy the file you just downloaded to your SD card.

Now, using a file manager on your Hero (such as Astro File Manager – free from the Android Market) browse to your SD card, find the file you placed on your SD card, select it and install it. Once it’s installed, go into your app drawer and open it. Agree to the license agreement, press Cancel when it asks you to set a password, then tap the “Backup” button. Now, tap Data, then Local, then select everything that you want to back up. Your options include:

  • Contacts
  • Call Log
  • Bookmarks
  • SMS
  • MMS
  • System Settings
  • Android Home
  • Alarms
  • Dictionary
  • Calendar
  • Music PlayList

All items in Green are recommended to Backup. Red items are NOT recommended, and black items are optional. Once your backup has completed, if you want to back up your applications, you may do so at this time. The process of backing up apps are as follows: First, go back to the main screen of the application you installed. Second, select Backup again. This time, select Applications & Media. Select Local again. You will be presented with two things: Apps and Photos. You may check Photos, but those should already be on your SD card to begin with. Stay on the safe side, and place a check mark next to Photos anyways. For the Apps option, there will be a small arrow on the left. Tap that, select all applications that you wish to save, and press OK. You’ll also press OK on the next screen, which is simply asking what you want to name the backup you’re creating. The pre-entered text is fine. For the next screen, you will want to select APKs + DATA, because you are wanting to save the apps and any data created by the apps. The next step is to sit and wait for the backup to complete. If you have a lot of applications, you may want to go grab a smoke or a drink or whatever it is that you do while you’re not busy, because a lot of apps will take a lot of time. Otherwise, sit back and hang tight while the backup runs. You’ll be presented with a screen that says Done, and gives you a backup summary. Press OK. Now for the fun part, it’s time to root your phone!

Go to your home screen, and set your phone down. You’ll need to download a program to your computer to get the required drivers needed for the root process. This may sound greek to you but it’s very simple, so just continue reading! Follow all of these next steps in order, making sure not to skip any. It may be a good idea to print this guide so you can cross out the steps you’ve already performed.

  1. Download the latest Java Development Kit (JDK). As of 01/26/2012, the version is 7u2. Wait for this to install and finish before continuing.
  2. Download the Android SDK Starter Package. It’s advisable to download the android-sdk_r16-windows.exe, as we will need to install this ourselves.
  3. When the SDK downloads, right click it and unzip it to C:\. This will create a folder named android-sdk-windows.
  4. Once unzipped, open the folder and start the program named SDK Manager.
  5. The SDK Manager will ask you what packages you want to install. Select the following (the others you’re presented with are unnecessary):
    • Android SDK Tools, revision 15
    • Android SDK Platform-tools, revision 9
    • Google USB Driver package, revision 4
  6. Once all those download and install, you can close the SDK Manager.
  7. Go to Control Panel and select System Properties (in Windows XP) or System (in Windows 7).
  8. Click Advanced Settings (it’s the “Advanced” tab in Windows XP, and the button to the left in Windows 7).
  9. Click Environment Variables.
  10. Under the System Variables section, look for “Path” on the left. Double-click it.
  11. In the Variable Valuessection, go all the way to the end of the text box (click then press the right arrow key to get to the end of the line of text), add the following text (making sure to add the semicolon!!):
    • ;C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools;C:\android-sdk-windows\tools
  12. Download another file, here. Note, this is a driver that will support all CyanogenMod supported devices, which is what you will be installing later.
  13. Unzip the file you just downloaded. You’ll see one file named android_winusb.inf. Copy this file to the following folder (note: you’ll be replacing an existing file):
    • C:\android-sdk-windows\extras\google\usb_driver\
  14. Go back to your phone. Press Menu > Settings > Applications > Development and make sure USB debugging is selected.
  15. Plug your phone back into your computer using the USB cable. The computer will then try to install drivers automatically.
  16. Once the driver installs successfully, open up the command prompt on your computer. Type adb devices. If it lists device(s), skip to Step 26. Otherwise, reboot your computer, then try again. If it still doesn’t list any devices, continue below.
  17. Open the Device Manager: Right click on My Computer (in XP) or Computer (in Windows 7). Click Manage. Click Device Manager on left.
  18. You’ll see an Unknown Device with ADB listed underneath, and a yellow exclamation point.
  19. Right click on ADB. Click Update Driver Software. Click “Browse my computer for driver software“.
  20. Click “Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer“.
  21. Click on “Have Disk“.
  22. Click “Browse“.
  23. Navigate to C:\android-sdk-windows\google-usb_driver and select android_winusb.inf.
  24. Click Android ADB Interface. Note: You’ll get an Update Driver Warning. Click yes.
  25. Once the driver is installed, open up the command prompt on your computer. Type adb devices. This time, it should list device(s).
  26. Download these 2 files: rageagainstthecage-arm5.zip and su-2.3.6.2-efgh.zip.
  27. Unzip both of these files to this folder: C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools.
  28. Connect your Hero to your computer via USB again.
  29. Open the command prompt and type the following commands, pressing enter after each line:
    1. cd C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools
    2. adb push rageagainstthecage-arm5.bin /data/local/tmp/
    3. adb shell
    4. chmod 755 /data/local/tmp/rageagainstthecage-arm5.bin
    5. /data/local/tmp/rageagainstthecage-arm5.bin
    6. Note: wait for this to finish then continue entering commands below:
    7. exit
    8. adb kill-server
    9. adb start-server
    10. adb shell
    11. Note: you should now see a #. if you see a $, please repeat steps 28 and 29a-d. If you see a #, please continue entering commands below:
    12. mount -o remount,re -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
    13. exit
    14. adb push su /system/xbin/
    15. adb shell chmod 4755 /system/xbin/su
    16. adb push Superuser.apk /system/app/
  30. Your HTC Hero is now Rooted! Congratulations! Please continue to the next steps.
We will now need to install what is called a ‘Custom Recovery”, which is what we will use to install CyanogenMod7 later. Follow the steps below:
  1. Download recovery-clockwork-2.5.0.7-heroc.img
  2. Move it to the following folder: C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools.
  3. Go back to your phone. Press Menu > Settings > Applications > Development and make sure USB debugging is selected.
  4. Connect your Hero to your computer via USB again.
  5. Open the command prompt and type the following commands, pressing enter after each line:
    1. cd C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools
    2. adb push recovery-clockwork-2.5.0.7-heroc.img /sdcard/recovery-clockwork-2.5.0.7-heroc.img
    3. adb shell
    4. su
    5. cd /sdcard/
    6. flash_image recovery recovery-clockwork-2.5.0.7-heroc.img
    7. reboot recovery
  6. Your Hero should now reboot into a black and green recovery screen.
  7. Download update-cm-7.1.0-RC1-Heroc-signed.zip
  8. Download gapps-gb-20110828-signed.zip
  9. Copy both of these files to the SD card on your phone. (Plug the USB cord into your phone, select mounts and storage, select mount USB storage, then copy the files. Be sure to select unmount when finished. NOTE: to scroll/select, you can use the volume buttons to scroll [or move trackball up/down], and press trackball to select)
  10. Press back until you get back to the main menu (with “reboot system now” as first option).
  11. You can create a backup of your current setup now, by selecting backup and restore, then select Backup. This step is optional.
  12. Press back until you get back to the main menu (with “reboot system now” as first option).
  13. Select wipe data/factory reset.
  14. Select wipe cache partition.
  15. Select install zip from sdcard.
  16. Select choose zip from sdcard.
  17. Select update-cm-7.1.0-RC1-Heroc-signed.zip.
  18. Scroll to select Yes – Install update-cm-…
  19. Select choose zip from sdcard.
  20. Select gapps-gb-20110828-signed.zip.
  21. Scroll to select Yes – Install gapps-gb-…
  22. Press back to get back to the main menu.
  23. Select reboot system now.
  24. Wait several minutes for your phone to boot.
  25. Congratulations! You now have a rooted HTC Hero with a fresh installation of CyanogenMod 7.1 running!
This may have seemed like it took forever, and this guide took me about 2.5 hours to write, but I sure hope that you’re happy with unleashing a bit more harnessed power that your HTC Hero holds. I’ll now walk you through how to restore your contacts, text messages and other data that we saved before we did all this. You should still have that file that you downloaded that the very beginning of this guide on yoru SD card. Once your phone is booted and you’ve reconfigured your Google account to sync to it and everything, we want to restore your data. In CM7, there’s a stock application simply named File Manager that you can use to reinstall the backup application so we can restore everything we saved.
Find the file you placed on your SD card, select it and install it. Once it’s installed, go into your app drawer and open it. Select Allow if you’re prompted to allow the application Root Access. Agree to the license agreement, press Cancel when it asks you to set a password, press Yes when it asks if you want to activate extra features for root users, then tap the “Restore” button. Now, tap Applications & Media, then Local, then select everything that you want to back up. Normally since you chose what you wanted to backup, it’s probably simplest to just place a check mark in each box that pops up. Let it restore everything, follow the on-screen instructions. If it asks you to reboot, then reboot, and follow this whole process again (in this paragraph), but this time select Data instead of Applications & Media, and restore your data.
This concludes the tutorial on how to root HTC Hero CDMA! Enjoy!

How to Root the Motorola Charm

in Android 2.1 Modifications

This guide will explain how to root the Motorola Charm. This is going to be a quick and simple guide, because the root process for the Motorola Charm is very simple.

Follow these instructions:

1) Download the Universal Androot application.
2) Go to the Android Market and install one of the applications that come up when you search for “AppInstaller”. A free one will be perfect.
3) Also, download ROM Manager.
4)  Now, put the Universal Androot app onto your SD card. Then, navigate to your SD card using the AppInstaller app that you downloaded, and select and install Universal Androot.
5) Open Universal Androot once it’s installed. Once it’s open, it should tell you what your firmware version is. Once you see that, click the “Root” button!
6) This may take up to 2 minutes, but once it’s done, it will tell you that you’ve successfully rooted your phone.

Simple, isn’t it? Now, you can use an app such as Root Explorer or Titanium Backup or something similar to uninstall those pesky stock apps that you never use!

Looking for Android Tablet Apps?

in Off Topic Stuff

Are you looking for Android tablet apps and having a hard time finding them? One thing that we noticed that the Android Market did not have, was a section for Android tablet applications. We decided several months ago that we needed to create a website that listed only Android applications that were designed specifically to work on the Android tablets, and now today we’d like to point you to that website! Android Tablet Apps is a website that we have created to allow users to search for applications that are specifically designed for Android tablets, and we hope that you find it useful. Be sure to follow the site on twitter at AndroidTabApps, like them at Facebook, and leave some comments and reviews on the apps you find!

Ice Cream Sandwich Launcher

in Applications

Get a taste of this delicious Ice Cream Sandwich launcher application right now! This is a very nice preview of what you should expect when Google releases Android Ice Cream Sandwich, which is the next generation of Android following Honeycomb. The download is below, as well as some screenshots I took before I made this article!

Download the app here: ICS_2.4_Launcher

AppRedeem – Get Paid to Download Android Apps!

in Off Topic Stuff

Have you ever wished that you could get paid for downloading Android apps? Well, now you can, with AppRedeem! This application pays you a specific amount of points which can be redeemed for cash via PayPal or for gift cards to many major places like Amazon, Macys, Nike and more!

Get $0.25 (25 points) to start out, by simply mentioning our code when you download and install the application from the Android market. Just search for AppRedeem!

Our code is market4android . You’ll enter this code once you download and install the application, then click on the button that says Bonus Code!

Petition to the US White House to Forgive Student Loan Debts

in Off Topic Stuff

There is currently a petition to the US White House to forgive student loan debts. This would be a true stimulus to our American (and world) economy, because it will free up billions of dollars that the consumers are currently pumping into the big name student loan companies, which is doing nothing to help our current economy. By forgiving student loans, each adult/student who is currently paying several hundred dollars, and some even paying thousands per month, would now have this extra money to pump back into our American economy, which would definitely give a permanent boost, instead of printing money and creating temporary jobs to give a placebo recovery effect. To quote directly from the petition:

Forgiving student loan debt would provide an immediate jolt to the economy by putting hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of extra dollars into the hands of people who WILL spend it – not just once, but each and every month thereafter – freeing them up to invest, buy homes, start businesses and families. This past year, total student loan debt finally surpassed total credit card debt in America, and is on track to exceed $1 TRILLION within the next year.

Here is the shortlink provided by the WhiteHouse.gov page: http://wh.gov/gpx

Please, allow just the two minutes that it takes to create an account at the WhiteHouse.gov site, verify your email address, and add your signature to this petition. The petition’s minimum-needed signature limit has already been surpassed three times over, but the more steam this petition gets, the more likely the White House will take this petition seriously.

14,654 Signatures as of 6:35pm Sep 27, 2011
14,794 Signatures as of 6:48pm Sep 27, 2011

Attention all Android Tablet Owners!

September 22, 2011

If you own an Android tablet, take a minute to visit iAndroid Tablets, which is a website designed for tablet users like you to leave your reviews and tips, as well as information, on the Android tablet(s) that you own. We’d love to have your input, so feel free to stop on by the site [...]

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Special Announcement

August 9, 2011

Hello Everyone! I will be making some changes on this site in the coming days. Please bear with me and if you see any bugs with the site, please let me know by using the contact form. I have made several changes behind the scenes already, to make this site a lot faster and snappier [...]

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HTC Evo and Samsung Epic to be Discontinued

August 7, 2011

  After a long and insanely good ride for both the HTC Evo and the Samsung Epic, both of these monumental phones will be discontinued, according to a screenshot that we have obtained from an online source, named at the bottom of this article. Long story short, the white HTC Evo will be discontinued in [...]

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Installing USB and ADB Drivers for Samsung Moment

July 20, 2011

If you are having trouble getting your computer to see your Samsung Moment when you plug it in, then you will need to follow the guide below to get your Moment to be recognized again. This issue extends to almost all Samsung Moments running any kernel, ROM, or version of Android. Installing USB and ADB [...]

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