Ask NerdGirl: I wanna root too! Another Password? Still don’t wanna get pulled over!
by n3rdg1rl
May 14, 2010 7:40 AM –
My first week of doing Ask NerdGirl has been a great success! Here’s to 1,000+ more!
Hi Nerdgirl,
I have a G1 since day one, and been thinking about doing [rooting]. But I’m not quite sure how to go about it. I have some understanding what rooting does but if there’s a way for you to breakdown how to go about it that would be awesome. Thanks so much!
Patrick!
Every phone is a little different, Patrick, but there are a few basics for rooting any phone that you need to be aware of:
1. Read and understand everything first! If you don’t, you’re going to be confused at a critical part and end up having a nice expensive paperweight. If you aren’t comfortable doing the process DON’T DO IT!
2. Fully charge the battery! It may say it only takes 20 minutes or 30 minutes or something to complete the whole process, but technology is very rarely perfect. Also, you have to consider that the phone is trying to do a lot of stuff while you’re rooting so it’s going to drain your battery more. Plus, don’t you want to play with your phone when you’re done?
3. Set aside at least an hour just for your phone! Make sure you’re not trying to do this while you’re expecting a call back about your dream job or your wife is about to have a baby. You won’t be able to receive calls while this is going on.
4. You might not have your carrier apps when you’re done! I know with Verizon and I’m pretty sure, with T-Mobile, you lose the stock apps that your carrier puts on your phone. With some ROMs it is possible to put them back on or they may be built in to the ROM. Most of the time you also will no longer receive updates from your carrier. If these things are important to you, you don’t want to root your phone.
5. Download the files using your computer! Some of the files you need are pretty big so downloading them over your phones network is going to be risky and they might end up being corrupted.
6. BACK EVERYHING UP! This is the most important thing. EVERYTHING on your phone is probably going to be gone, including the stuff on your SD card. Please remember to copy everything you need to somewhere besides your phone.
7. THIS VOIDS YOUR WARRANTY! I still don’t understand why phone companies void your hardware warranty for a software change, but they do. Make sure you think about this before you decide to root your phone.
8. DO YOU REALLY WANT TO DO THIS? There are tons of cool things that makes you think you want to root your phone. If you’ve thought about this long and hard and you feel it’s the root you want to take, by all means, have fun. But if you are even a little bit unsure, I strongly advise against it. Can you live without your phone if it dies during the process? Do you have the funds to replace it?
If you have followed my 8 Golden Rules for Rooting, you are ready to get your hands dirty.
There are two parts to rooting your phone: replacing your recovery image and installing the custom Android build. Unfortunately, this is where my help must stop. Depending on what ROM you chose to use and what version of Android you currently have, the steps are different. I recommend going to some great website that I have found to be really helpful with this kind of stuff.
http://www.androidforums.com and http://www.droidforums.net
Have fun!
Hi nerdgirl,
We just downloaded and set up Skype on my PC. A friend called from Florida and we saw each other and talked. Then I downloaded the mobile version. Unclear if I could use the same name and password? I tried and was not successful. Also, same question regarding Facebook. On PC and Droid. same login and password OK or not? Thanks
All the passwords, for everything I’ve ever used at least, should be the same, Dave. If you’re having trouble with it still, I would contact Skype. I just contacted them for help with an answer to another question and they’re very helpful.
I have had this problem with my Twitter app and just rebooting the phone fixed it. Sometimes it just doesn’t want to communicate with the servers correctly and a quick power cycle fixes things.
Thanks for answering my question about voice dialing on the Droid, but I’m afraid I didn’t make my question sufficiently clear. I know all about the native voice dialing on Android phones, but it’s illegal to use it when driving in California (and other hands-free states) because it requires you to touch the phone to initiate a voice dial. Same is true of Choice Dialer and other similar apps. What Android needs, and doesn’t apparently have, is a way to initiate voice dialing from a Bluetooth headset. Why is this common feature missing, or disabled?
Bob Finn
Update: Android 2.2 (Froyo) does have Bluetooth Voice Dialing!
I’m sorry I didn’t clear up your question, Bob. I understand now. You need to be completely hands free, like just touch your headset and talk.
I did some research and there are literally thousands of posts of how people are just flat out pissed off that there’s no way to use your Bluetooth device to initiate a phone call. Android simply does not recognize a Bluetooth headset until after a call is started. No one knows why and this is a huge safety issue. Maybe this will be coming out with Android 2.2, scheduled to be announced officially next week. Let’s hope it does.
In the meantime, try Choice Dialer. It’s $4.00, but there is a free version that doesn’t allow for as many hand free actions. I have read that some people use this because it’s more hands free than the built in voice dialer that you have to confirm actions with. I wish I had a more positive answer for you.
Tomorrow I’m going to go a little deeper into the Android in-car integration issue. Also, I’m going to be talking about more media on your phone and parental controls. Keep sending your questions to
nerdgirl@androidtapp.com!
~n3rdg1rl