For the last three years I have used a Cheap Chinese Blackberry "look alike" (meaning it LOOKED like Blackberry at first blush, nothing else).
The phone ran its own (buggy as hell) software and had JavaME (a rather crummy implementation) so I could run some Java midlets. It was sort of a "smartphone" with camera etc. But nothing particularly spectacular. Why did I stick to it? IT WAS A PHONE, everything else was just toys.
The phone finally died about a month ago, so I bought a Cheap Chinese Android phone, it was specially cheap because (among other things) it only supported the English language, so most people were put off against it.
Since all the IT tech sites ran all sort of stuff about Android, I figured it would be a good time to hack around with the phone to see what I could get out of it.
The phone came with three page instruction manual, no software and the AC adapter for the wrong country (did I mention that it is a very Cheap Chinese phone?
)So I dowloaded the generic android drivers for Windows and modified the INF file so it would recognize my phone, that way I could connect it to my PC through a USB port and play with it.
It came with Android ver. 2.2.2 which is old as hell but hey IT'S JUST A PHONE.
So I installed some apps, Mostly geek stuff: a web server, an SFTP/SSH server, an SSH/MOSH client, RDP and VNC client, unit conversion software, Network diagnostics, IP mask calculator, some simple games, etc. and played with the connectivity: BlueTooth, Wifi, 3G, Tethering, even made a VPN to the office.
Then came the time to "root" the phone.
Several applications (like most of the NON-OFFICIAL implementations of Java for Android) required special privileged access to the phone (known in Unix-like parlance as "root access"). Almost all phones have this disabled by default, and enabling it requires some footwork (particularly if your phone is an obscure chinese thing).
After a couple of days of trying I managed to "root" it.
"rooting" usually has some risk of rendering the phone inoperable (aka "bricking it") but somehow I managed to do it without destroying the thing (beginner's luck I guess
)SO, now what?
Nothing, I played with it till I got bored, back to being a phone.
Why did I bother to post about it?
I got nothing to update the "Banana Republic Newsflash" thread with so far......
