The new HTC Aria will increase the supply of Android-based phones on AT&T.  The new device promises to be faster and more capable than the Motorola Backflip and the Dell Aero.

The Aria will rock a 5 megapixel camera, 3.2 inch display, a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM 7227 processor, Android OS 2.1, and of course coming from HTC …. the sense ui.  The Aria will be released on June 20, just five days before the iPhone 4.

While not as powerful as the HTC Evo or the HTC Incredible, it does come at more of an affordable $129.99 pricetag on a two-year contract.  Not a bad mid-level smartphone.

Mid-level Android phones seem to be what AT&T is bringing to the table for their customers but at least they are in the Android market.

Some new in-the-box features include Wi-Fi tethering and a 750MHz OMAP processor running Motoblur.  Word on the street is the phone will come with a 5mp camera and will be preloaded with Android 2.1, not Froyo (Android 2.2).

So, there is an improvement on what the phone includes with the processor speed increased by default and tethering but running Motoblur which I do not prefer as well as not having the newest OS loaded.  I’m not sure if going away from the snapdragon processor is the way to go either.

Police received a tip of the ad and then posed as an interested craigslister.  Once they all met up and Walker offered the marijuana, both were arrested and now face charges for possession and the attempted sale of an illegal substance.  Below is the picture included in the craigslist ad.

Next time try thinking out these decisions before you take action.  I’m not really sure what kind of state-of-mind you have to be in to think there won’t be repercussions to posting this kind of ad.

[original story]

For the past three years around July, Apple has released a new iPhone version with cutting edge technology.  First, was the 2G version or the original, then the 3G, then the 3GS and this year is no different.  This year we have the iPhone 4 and on top of that there will be a new OS which will be named iOS 4.

Let’s take a look at some key new specs:

• Capacity will be either 16GB ($199) or 32GB ($299) versions.
• A new Retina Display screen which allows better accuracy with more pixels per inch.
• 

You can pre-order an iPhone 4 right now and they are set to be released on June 25th.

• What does root mean?  Well rooting is similar to iPhone jailbreaking if you have ever heard of that.  Basically it unlocks your phones hidden potential for things like overclocking and wireless tethering.  Referring to Linux, rooting gives you Superuser permissions (sudo) … much like being an administrator on a windows pc.
• Will rooting void my warranty?  Yes in the rooted form.  There are ways to revert the phone back to stock though.
• Are there any other risks?  Besides the warranty, it is possible to ‘brick’ your phone, making it unusable, but as we see more and more you really have to try to do this.

Ok so now that we know more about rooting, its time to get into the process of doing it.  First we need to credit Matt3w and all others that have put in time to make guides (this guide is from Matt3w go to that link if any problems happen for help).  FOLLOW STEPS AS THEY ARE WRITTEN, for Bugless Beast rom.

If you ever need to get back to stock COMPLETELY, go here.

*** Note *** If you are already rooted and simply want to install this ROM, skip to step 9. If you are installing OVER a previous version of Bugless Beast, skip to step 34. If you have no clue what I am talking about, start from step 1. This will also not work if you have a 2.1 ROM of some sort installed. Pete’s Bugless Beast is NOT a 2.1 ROM, so if you have a previous version of this, you are fine to continue. It has some elements from 2.1, but it is not an actual 2.1 ROM. THIS LAST STATEMENT DOES NOT APPLY TO 2.1 APPS ONLY SUCH AS GALLERY, ETC…ONLY 2.1 FULL REPLACEMENT ROMS! If you only have 2.1 apps this installation method will work.
Another note: If you go to download any of the files and get a bunch of BS characters, just simply right click, save as. Don’t just click.

First thing we will do, is root the Droid.
If you are coming from Sholes ROM, or if you are having problems right now as it stands (locking, rebooting, etc), I would HIGHLY suggest wiping your phone completely to stock before you begin so it’s easier to tell where your problems are coming from. If you have no idea what I’m talking about or you aren’t having problems just go on.

DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS WITH A LOW BATTERY. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A GOOD CHARGE.
1. Download the file update.zip from here. This file should be ABOUT 10.6MB, if it’s something super small like 240kb you need to redownload the file. Make sure the file is named update.zip by right clicking the file in Windows Explorer, and choosing properties. The top empty box it will say update.zip. If it says update.zip.zip you will not be able to root your Droid – it will say “file not found” or something to that effect. This update.zip is for rooting your Droid. So make sure you use THIS particular link in this step for the first update.zip (you will see later that the actual ROM is also called update.zip as well) or it won’t work. Very important.
2. Plug your phone into the computer using the USB cable. From the notification menu at the top of the phone, slide that down and click the “USB Connected” button. Choose “Mount.” Copy ‘update.zip’ from your computer to the root of your phone’s sdcard. The root of your sdcard means the base, like C:\. If you are unsure of what root means, PLEASE go back to the “Please read before you try to root” thread that I linked above. This is VERY important!!! Disconnect the phone from the computer.
3. Turn off phone.
4. While the phone is off, slide open the keyboard.
5. Hold down ‘x’ and then begin to hold down the power button at the same time. When the screen lights up, you can let go of the buttons. You will now be booted to a screen with an exclamation point in the middle.. Sort of like this /!\. This is the STOCK recovery menu.
6. Press the ‘volume +’ and ‘camera’ buttons together until you see the screen change to a menu.
7. Choose the option to ‘run update.zip.’ Wait for finish… This update gives you super user or ‘root’ access to the phones internal drive and filesystem. If you stopped here, you would simply have a ‘rooted’ phone.
8. Reboot phone. When it boots back up, check to see if you have a ninja icon that says “Superuser Permissions” in your app drawer. If you do not have this, DO NOT CONTINUE UNTIL YOU HAVE THIS ICON, it will be pointless to continue if you don’t have this.Superuser Permissions is sort of like having Administrator access on your home computer. Without it, there are many things you can’t do.

Next thing we will do is flash the phone and install SPRecovery.
9. Go to Android Market and install ‘Android Terminal Emulator.’ It’s free. Not Terminal Emulator, not Better Terminal Emulator. Android Terminal Emulator. It’s by Jack Palevich. The program will show up as simply “Terminal Emulator” once you install it.
10. Download the file flash_image from here. This file should NOT have a file extension!!! Make sure it does not have a file extension of ANY TYPE!!! If you or your computer have added a file extension (some users have reported that their computer added a .txt at the end of the file) it will not work! If you go to download this file and Vista puts a .txt extension on it, simply remove the file extension. Again, you can double check to see what, if any, file extension it has by right clicking the file and choosing properties.
11. Copy ‘flash_image’ from your computer to the root of your sdcard. Again, if you don’t know what the root of your SD card is, please go back to the beginning of this thread.
12. Download the newest version of SPRecovery from Sholes.info here, and copy it to the root of your SD card. Disconnect the phone from the USB cable.
13. Open ‘Android Terminal Emulator.’ (In the launcher, you will see it is simply called ‘Terminal Emulator’.) You will now see a blue screen with command prompt. For those of you only familiar with Windows-based machines, this is very similar to a command or DOS prompt, where you have to manually type in commands instead of clicking on a pretty icon to do all your dirty work.
14. Slide open the keyboard and type ’su’ then press ‘enter’. You will be prompted to press ‘Allow’. Press ‘Allow’ (and don’t forget to check the remember check box). This grants you Superuser Permissions while in Terminal Emulator, or the equivalent as right click > run as administrator in Windows.Your command prompt should change from $ to # to let you know it worked. If it didn’t, stop right now because something did not install properly.
15. Type ‘mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system’ without the quotes. This will make the phone’s internal drive writable so that we can copy files to it from the sdcard in the next step. For everything you type in Terminal Emulator you need to make sure you copy EVERYTHING exactly as you see it. Also, remember to hit ENTER at the end of each line. Enter is located RIGHT BELOW the delete key, it is NOT the gold button in the center of the directional pad. It should also be noted that the ‘o’ is a lower case “oh” NOT a zero. Don’t forget the space between ‘mtdblock4′ and ‘/system’ or you will get an error!!!
16. Type ‘dd if=/sdcard/flash_image of=/system/bin/flash_image’ without the quotes. It will tell you how many bytes in/out. This copies the flash_image utility to the phones internal drive where we need it. That is all one line…
17. Type ‘chmod 755 /system/bin/flash_image’. This changes the permissions of flash_image so that we can use it.
18. Type ’sync’.
19. Type ‘/system/bin/flash_image recovery /sdcard/recovery-0.99.3.img’. It should be noted that this command is all on one line, not two separate commands. There should be a short pause as the custom recovery image is flashed and then the command prompt will appear again. At this point, the stock recovery screen has now been replaced by the one you will see in steps later on. This recovery image was written by SirPsycoS and is shared by him at sholes.info.
20. Type ‘mv /system/recovery-from-boot.p /system/recovery-from-boot.old’. This should prevent the custom recovery from being over-written on reboot. If this step doesn’t work for you, skip it. I’ve haven’t witnessed the problem that it is supposed to prevent. bernal125 skipped it without issue. For others, this step has worked without issue.
21. Type ’sync’.
22. Close ‘Android Terminal Emulator.’ Go the Market and hit menu > Downloads and update EVERY app that you have installed, ESPECIALLY Google Maps. By doing this, you ensure that you have all your programs updated before you make a backup. Additionally, I use MyBackupPro in ADDITION to using the backup method in the following steps. It’s a paid app, but it also backs up system settings, etc.
23. Download virginoem-backup.zip . Going back on your computer, extract ‘virginoem-backup.zip’ so that have you have folder called ‘virginoem-backup’ with the contents resembling ‘boot.img’ ‘cach.tar’ ‘data.tar’ etc… this is a backup that will get you back to stock (stock as in, you just bought the phone, not as in where you are now) in the event that you need to.
24. Create a folder on the root of your sdcard called ‘nandroid’. This folder stores all of your backups that you make so you can choose from them and restore using the recovery screen at a later date.
25. Copy the folder ‘virginoem-backup’ from your computer to the ‘nandroid’ folder you just created on your sdcard in step 24. Unplug the USB.
26. Power off the phone.

Now we will backup your phone’s current state in the event that something goes wrong with the installation.
27. Hold ‘x’ and power button to boot into recovery as in step 5 above. You won’t get the exclamation point this time. Rather you will be booted right into the recovery.
28. READ THE RED COLORED TEXT SO THAT YOU KNOW HOW TO NAVIGATE THE MENU.
29. Choose ‘backup/restore’.
30. Choose ‘Advanced Nandroid backup’.
31. Choose ‘Set backup name’.
32. Type a descriptive name for your backup and press enter. For example, I always make mine something like: BuglessBeastOne, BuglessBeastTwo, etc.
33. Choose ‘Perform backup’. The chances of you screwing something up without specifically trying to are pretty slim, but we are going to do this just to be sure. An image of your phone’s current state will now be made. It will take a couple minutes. With this backup you can always revert back if you don’t like the ROM. Keep in mind if you revert back to this image, you will still be rooted with sprecovery.

Also keep in mind that you can redo steps 29-33 to do a complete back up of your phone ANY TIME you want.
Now you are rooted with SPRecovery, you are backed up with Nandroid, and you are ready to install Bugless Beast. When installing Bugless Beast, you will NOT lose your applications, contacts, shortcuts, etc by using the method I am about to show you…reboot the phone by hitting the power button one press at a time until you are back to the main recovery menu, then hit reboot system. When it loads into the operating system go ahead and plug in your USB and mount your SD card.

The moment you’ve been waiting for…Installing Bugless Beast…
34. Delete the previous update.zip file both from your computer and the root of your SD card to prevent confusion, if it is still there…if you don’t feel like deleting the old version just overwrite the existing file but make sure this next file overwrites or replaces the old update.zip that we used to root your phone. Download the Bugless Beast ROM here. Note that it is the same file name as the update.zip that rooted your phone. Make sure, once again, that your file is named update.zip, not update.zip.zip (as before). This file should be ABOUT 70MB.
35. Just like in step 2, put the update.zip file on the root of your SD card then unplug the phone when you are done.
36. Power off the phone.
37. Reboot into SPRecovery by powering on the phone and holding in the X key on the hardware keyboard, just like you did before.
38. Choose install.
39. Choose allow update.zip installation. Don’t forget this step. If you do, you will get “installation blocked” or something to that effect. This is the feature that prevent OTA updates from being able to be installed to your phone. In the future, if you want to accept a Google update for you phone you will need to download the file, then boot into this menu, and hit “allow update.zip installation” or it won’t work.
40. Choose Install /sdcard/update.zip (deprecated). Deprecated is a software developer’s term that means “something that should not be used or is dangerous to use and recommended against”. Obviously we want to use this update.zip, so in this case, think of the term deprecated as a warning…as in “Are you sure you want to overwrite your current OS?” It’s perfectly safe to complete this step, but many people do not know what this word means.
41. Hit the power button once, and then choose reboot.
42. Enjoy your new ROM. One thing I do if I have any issues at first is a) wait a few minutes to let it start up for the first time, and b) dial *228 and choose option 2 to have the phone reset roaming capabilities.

If you want to overclock your phone, continue…otherwise skip to step 46.
43. Download SetCPU from the Market. When this app asks you if you want to allow or deny just hit allow and check the box to remember that choice.
44. When it asks what device you are using, do NOT choose Droid, scroll all the way towards the bottom choose “auto detect”. If for some reason you are STILL having issues, try unchecking all of the profiles and rechecking them, as well as moving the slider bar on the main SetCPU screen.
45. You can now overclock your droid to 1000mHz (1gHz) at all times, or you can set certain conditions by going to profiles > enable profiles and then setting the conditions and checkmarks for the various profiles you want to use. To see information on my CPU/battery temps test results, click here. If you are still having issues, go here: Please read this before you ask about SetCPU! . If you are concerned about your CPU, overclocking, and temperatures, go here: [Official] CPU Temp Results

Next we are going to show you how to monitor temps while overclocking. If you don’t care about this, skip to step 47.

46. The software you need is called Temp Monitor, and it costs $1.99 on the Market. It’s pretty simple to set up, so we didn’t necessarily need a whole section for it…but what the heck, people ask constantly about it…so there you go.

If you want to WiFi tether, keep going, otherwise skip to step 52
47. If you want to WiFi tether, download the apk file from here. Put it somewhere on your SD Card. Personally I have a folder called APK on my SD Card so I know where they all are, but I’m OCD.
48. You can either download Astro File Manager (free, not a bad program) from the market or Root Explorer (paid app, much better).
49. Make sure under settings > applications you have “use unsigned applications” or whatever it says. Top box. It will give you a warning but just ignore it.
50. Navigate to the file you just downloaded and click it. Do not explore the file in Astro, but choose open and install. In Root Explorer just choose install.
51. My settings for WiFi tether are…turn on WiFi, uncheck use Bluetooth, check Enable WiFi Encryption, set up a passphrase (make sure it is 13 characters), change the SSID or leave it default (I left it default), Change channel to 07, power mode active, enable access control unchecked (my preference), change LAN first option, everything else left it the way it was.

The next step is to fix the map updates.
52. Go here and download yet another update.zip.
53. Just like before you are going to either remove or overwrite the update.zip on the root of your SD Card with this one.
54. Follow steps 34 to 41. This file should fix any force closes or non-GPS updating map related problems.

If you don’t like the look of the Smoked Glass theme…keep going, otherwise, skip to step 58
55. Go here and download yet another update.zip.
56. Just like before you are going to either remove or overwrite the update.zip on the root of your SD Card with this one.
57. Follow steps 34 to 41. This file will give you the OEM theme instead of the Smoked Glass that comes with BB.

Now we are going to fix a problem IF you have the issue with the phone rebooting when going into Accounts & Sync
58. If your phone reboots when you go into Accounts and Sync in the settings menu, go to the Market and download Facebook for Android and that should solve the problem.

FINE PRINT: I am in no way, shape, or form responsible for what you do or do not do to your phone. This guide only serves as a conduit for you…so if you screw something up, or you fry your CPU, or you lose your data, or you brick your phone or take it to Verizon and they get pissed and deny warranty because you have rooted…I cannot be held responsible.

Since I was running the original Blackberry Storm, my hardware needed some updating because of the slowness.  I am very pleased with my Droid because of all the things it offers.  I will miss my Blackberry Messenger though and if you have a Blackberry you will understand but its worth it.

My new program that I have been using is called Digsby.  If you have ever used apps that let you join all your messaging clients into one, than you will love this.  If you haven’t used this type of app before you will really love it.

As you can see Digsby lets you put things like twitter, facebook, and email updates on your account for news feed updates or new messages.  For instant messaging you can add facebook, aim, msn and icq just to name a couple.  My main reason for starting to use it was the ability to have a desktop client for facebook because I hate being on the facebook website and keeping a browser open.  Digsby lets you customize things like the chat windows and the buddy list setup which is also pretty cool.  I definitely recommend this FREE product and think everybody should give it a try.