Motorola Droid Root & 2.2.2 Upgrade to 2.3.5

After about as many crashes or waiting for just the screen to unlock on my original Motorola Droid I decided something had to give. One of these days I might actually need to make a phone call right away or be able to use an app within a minute after unlocking the phone. So I began looking in to alternatives. Mostly what I was considering was just picking up a new Android based phone. However I'm very stubborn sometimes when it comes to spending money. Plus I would just drag my feet in making a purchase trying to figure out which model I would want...then look to see what is coming out....decide to wait for the next model....then restart the cycle looking at what would be coming out next. A very bad habit to have sometimes. Plus my wife and I both have Droids so I'd have to buy her a new one as well or have an unpleasant situation on my hands :)

I began searching for other options...I had never rooted my Droid and though I always knew it was an option since I originally purchased the phone I just hadn't gotten around to it. So I began researching to see what options were available to getting me out of the Android 2.2.2 funk that my OG Droid was in. To my excitement I began finding some options out there. And the best answer I found was on DROIDLIFE. That is where I began to read about my option of upgrading my Android to version to 2.3.5 through the work of Peter Alfonso.

So I began my journey of rooting my phone and getting the OS upgrade for my Droid. Below is a summary of what I had to do to get my Droid upgraded to this latest version. If you decide to follow these instructions I cannot take liability for anything that may happen...rooting and uploading a different OS incorrectly can cause seriously harm to your phone. I'm only showing as an example what worked for me. Proceed with caution:

Rooting Phone:

• To begin with you'll need to enable USB Debugging on your phone. This can be accomplished by going to: Settings, Applications, Development, USB Debugging
• Download the Motorola USB Drivers.
• You'll also need the Android SDK Developers Kit.
• To root my phone I used a program called SuperOneClick. It was fast, easy, and painless. It is one of the options of what you may have heard of as the "one click root". It was a fairly simple process.
• For more specific instructions on using SuperOneClick I followed the following information/instructions from Ryan Dube.

Upgrading to Android 2.3.5:

• I downloaded GPA17 latest beta from Peter Alfonso's site which is 2.3.5. A direct link to his latest beta versions are: http://wonderly.com/bb/DROID/ROM/BETA/\
• You must next move the file to your SD card of your Droid.\
• I used Rom Manager which I downloaded off of the Android Market.
  1) Be sure to use the Flash ClockworkMod Recovery. This will create a backup of your current ROM.
  2) Next I selected Install ROM from SD Card & selected the file that was downloaded and placed on SD card from Peter Alfonso's site.
  3) Be sure to selected "Backup Existing Rom & Wipe Data and Cache".
• When your phone reboots you should be in your new ROM. However, if you run into an issue with your phone booting you can get into ClockworkMod Recovery console during boot of your phone by the following:
  1) With your phone off turn the phone on and hold the power button at the same tiem as the "x" key.
  2) This should take you in to the ClockworkMod Recovery console where you'll have the options available to you to such as wiping data or installing zip from SD card.
• I found more information about how to use ClockworkMod Recovery from the following site: http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/what-is-clockworkmod-recovery-and-how-to-use-it-on-android-complete-guide/

So far I've been using 2.3.5 now for just over a week and my phone has been running better then I think it ever has. I did overclock the processor slightly (from 550mhz to 700mhz) though I've read that 800mhz should be fine as well I've not had any need for the extra speed. I've not had the lockups like I had before with 2.2.2 and the screen changes and general speed of the phone has vastly improved.

I would like to give credit where it is due to the following sites/people where I took pieces of information to help me get through this whole process:

• Where I found out about Peter Alfonso: Droid Life - http://www.droid-life.com/2011/07/26/android-2-3-5-released-for-the-original-droid-by-peter-alfonso/
• Peter Alfonso & all of his great work in making this latest version of the Android OS available on my old Droid: http://www.peteralfonso.com/
• Ryan Dube who wrote an excellent article on using SuperOneClick: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/root-android-phone-superoneclick-2/
• Ryan Dube also wrote a great article on using Rom Manager which helped me get through the basics of getting this ROM installed: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/install-custom-rom-android/
• SuperOneClick: http://shortfuse.org/
• Rom Manager: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.koushikdutta.rommanager&hl=en
• Complete guide to using the ClockworkMod Recovery: http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/what-is-clockworkmod-recovery-and-how-to-use-it-on-android-complete-guide/

If you do end up using the ROM from Peter Alfonso please also consider giving a donation if you find it to work well for you as I did. Even the smallest amounts help people keep these types of options out there for all of us. Also consider purchasing the license for Rom Manager as I've found it to be a very useful app.

Sysadmin Appreciation Day - Friday July 29th

The 12th annual Sysadmin Appreciation Day is almost upon us (Friday July 29th).

There are multiple cities hosting meet ups...you will find me @ the one in Columbus, OH: http://www.standalone-sysadmin.com/blog/sysadmin-day-get-together/

I highly recommend that if you're free and in one of the areas with a hosted event you should give it a try and stop by. Though this is my first year going to one of these events I am sure it will be a great way to connect with people in different parts of the sysadmin field.

http://www.sysadminday.com/

And if you're not an admin and you've hit this post don't forget to give a shout out to your sysadmin and let them know you're aware of all the hard work they do.

New Wiki

All,

It's still "under construction" but below is a link to the Wiki page I am currently building. It will at the beginning at least mostly information in regards to telecommunications / ip pbx's.

http://telecom-and-it.wikispaces.com/

Any ideas of what you'd like to see here or any questions please feel free to let me know & thanks.

Changes in the air....

Well it has been a very long time (almost a year) since my last blog post. That being said this blog hasn't been forgotten. I've been very tied up with my career and home stuff.

That being said for the last couple weeks I've been working on a side project...a wiki page. A place that I am going to dump as much of my knowledge as possible. It will focus primarily at this time the telecommunications side of things...specifically IP PBX's, IP Phones, and all the stuff that goes with them. Specific manufacturers I am going to be posting information on will be Cisco, Adtran, Ipitomy, Allworx, and Asterisk.

Reason for this decision is that some changes in my career are coming about and I may not be doing some of the stuff I have been doing for the last couple of years but I wanted to actually share some of the knowledge I have with the rest of you out there that may stumble upon it or need it.

What that specifically means for this blog is that I am planning on posting any major updates about the wiki on this blog in the interim period. I also am planning on changing the look of both this blog and http://www.telecom-and-it.com

Right now I'm not giving out the wiki just yet because it is right now just at the point of completing its structural view and hasn't been filled with much content yet but as soon as I get to a point where I feel it is worthy of public view I'll be sure to post that information.

Reminiscing of an older age of computer games - Part II

Well....I thought I'd moved on from this subject that I posted back in April but something in me this morning made me just do a quick Google for Kings Quest. Let me just say I came back with much more then I had planned on.....

For starters I found a website named Sarien.net- Instant adventure gaming. Let me just say that this is flippin' sweet. They have the following classic adventure games all available to play right on their website:

• Gold Rush
• Kings Quest I, II, III
• Leisure Suit Larry I
• Police Quest I & II
• The Black Cauldron
• Sarien Studio

I've already tried out Police Quest for a little to long today. It is just out right amazing. I did run in to a couple small bugs but nothing that disturbed game play. Heck from what I've read on their website there is even multiplayer they've added to these old games so that you can see other players playing the game and talk to each other. Plus you can change to different avatars. The people over at Q42 (the makers of Sarien.net) did an amazing job porting these games to the web. I definitely give my kudos and recommend any of my readers to take some time and read the "about" section of their site and how these ports came to be. Sounds like a really awesome company.

Also, I just found another site that is dedicated in taking the old Sierra classics and remaking them with a change to graphics & sounds/speech: AGDInteractive Studios.

From what I've seen so far they have Kings Quest I & II, and also Quest for Glory II. They also have an in house title named Al Emmo and The Lost Dutchmans Mine. I only had a few minutes to try Kings Quest I but it seemed very nicely done. I'm looking forward to digging more in to their ports as well.

I just cannot express how happy I am to see these classics sticking around so many years later and am very appreciative of all the hard work the people of these companies have done to keep them alive.

Let me know what you think of these....maybe we'll meet up on some online Police Quest or something :)

Telecom & IT....the North vs. the South...

A friend of mine asked me a few weeks ago why I hadn't been posting any new blogs. The answer came to me fairly quickly...."I don't feel like I've got anything to really offer readers that hasn't already been said somewhere else". Well after a short discussion and some questions from his side about some telecom information I began to realize that there is actually plenty I can give to readers. Most is likely out there somewhere but hopefully I can give a side to it that perhaps will help people.

I have a unique presence in today's telecom and IT world. I literally work in both of these worlds on an every day basis. I don't necessarily believe I'm an expert in either field but I do believe that I have a moderately strong amount of knowledge. I've been working with computers in some sort of way since the late 1980's and in 2000 I started working for a wireless internet provider. In 2003 I moved on to a CLEC where I was lucky enough to be trained in the world of Bell Standards by some really great old Ma Bell techs. Over the years I've taken that training they provided and applied it to different positions I've held from being a field tech, to a lead trouble screener, and now to an engineering position.

Even though with SIP, IP-PBX's, etc the IT and Telecom fields have been merged together for quite some time I've come to see that there is still a thin gap. A North vs. South so to say. Many times I will hear fellow telecom workers tell me "well you can tell that system was designed by a computer guy". And then I've heard the other side as well. Problem is that many times though both sides are trying to accomplish the same thing there is still a cultural gab between the two that sometimes creates issues in how things should really work.

Now with many IT administrators in today's world also being requested to take care of telecom equipment things just get that much more complicated.

So.....the point going forward on my front. I am going to try and get a post out weekly that has to do with things that I believe are necessary to be known both on a telecommunications side of things and the IT as well. Things going from simple cabling guidelines to deeper explanations of things like QoS on data networks and how they apply to voice IP networks.

I don't have a full schedule of things I'm going to get posted but I'd love to hear any feed back you the readers have on this subject and even better things that maybe you'd like to have addressed. I know I don't have a large amount of readers at this point but please...pass the word along if you know someone in a situation where maybe they've been thrown telecom equipment they have to figure out or maybe are just looking for some general information and I'll do what I can to assist in answering any questions you all have.

Plus I'm going to work on getting a couple of past Bell technicians to possibly write up some small blogs to help get some of their infinite knowledge out on the web.

Reminiscing of an older age of computer games

I was reminiscing the other day again about the "good old days". I still remember drooling when 16 color games came out. Heck, I was plenty happy with my Tandy Color Computer 3 - TRS 80 on my black and white TV :)

Back in 2008 I wrote a blog on my personal page talking about old adventure games that I favored back in the late 80's/early 90's. I thought I would copy that blog and bring it over here for discussion.

Games on the top of my list that come to mind are:

Kings Quest





















Space Quest




















Police Quest


















Hero's Quest / Quest for Glory series




















Leisure Suit Larry










Loom:




















Monkey Island:

There are so many games I used to play back in those days. I still play some games a little these days but I just never get the feel like I did back then. It seems to me looking back that about the time 16 color games came out was the time that I really was taking off with computer gaming.

Sometimes I feel that way about computers in general. It was a different time back then. A lot less people dabbling around in the IT field.

So what's your thoughts on games from this time period compared to the past? Any others that really ring a bell to you when you look back?