With our stormy season upon us, I wanted to have internet access on my laptop during power outages.  Yes, I have an Android smart phone, and can access the internet on it, but let’s face it, phone screens are small and the suckers are hard to see at my age!  So I looked into “tethering”.

There are several ways to tether.  Some phones have built in tethering options, some phones you can tether by downloading an app, but others need to be rooted in order for tethering to work.  Of course, my phone (LG Ally) fell into the latter category.  But, since there are other benefits to rooting your phone anyway, I was not to be discouraged .  There are several ways to “root” a phone.  A lot of this depends on which version of Android OS you have and can also depend on whether you have applied any patches, so, the 1^st thing is to double check your version (this must be exact: i.e. 2.2) and any patches (i.e. 2.2.1).  There are some apps that allow you to root and unroot your phone easily using the app.  Once again, my phone can’t use them, so I had to do some wiggling.  I had to download several things (including special drivers) using my computer and do my root that way.  Since every phone is going to be different, search out your method according to your phone and version of Android OS.

The second step after completing the “root” was to find a tether app that worked.  There are several in the Android Market, but the first one I tried (Barnacle) didn’t work for me.  My laptop did not discover my phone, even though my phone said it was broadcasting.  The second app I tried (Wireless Tether) worked!  YAY! SCORE!  Now, I will be able to use the internet with my wifi devices (laptop, tablet) even when the power is out or I am not in range of any wifi connections.

BJ Exum

p.s. Please remember that “rooting” your phone may void your warranty!

Credit for the following “cell phone geek speak” totally goes to Sam Fisher.  I pulled this from an Android forum.  I thought he did a great job!

• ADK: Android Development Kit, What people use to develop anything for the droid such as ROM’s
• Baseband: In communications and signal processing, the baseband describes signals and systems whose range of the frequencies measured from close to 0 hertz to a cut-off frequency, a maximum bandwidth or highest signal frequency; it is sometimes used to describe frequencies starting close to zero
• Boot Loader: State in which the droid can be flashed from RSD with an appropriate .sdk file that reprograms the phone into a specific ROM or update. This is typically a last resort when the recovery screen cannot be reached to make a much simpler and less risky solution
• Boot Loop: simply means something is preventing the phone from completing it’s boot cycle and is stuck between the boot animation and the unlock screen, creating a looped animation. This is often fixed by either reloading a Nandroid, or Reflashing a rom from the Boot Loader.
• Brick or Bricked: Jargon for a completely unrecoverable device, (no more than a brick or paperweight)
• Bug or Software Bug: an Error or flaw in software that produces a failure or unexpected/unwanted result. Typically created from incorrect code, this is why some ROMs are better and smoother running than others because certain developers have taken the time to input “perfect” code
• Busybox: BusyBox is a single multi-call binary that packages the functionality of most widely used standard Unix tools, BusyBox provides a fairly complete environment for any small or embedded system.
• ClockworkMod: A recovery program that is often used to apply updates, ROMs, or create a back up or restore a backup file
• De-odex: Apk files have respective odexes that devs use to supposedly save space. Deodexing means you convert it back to a .dex file and put it back inside the apk. This allows you to easily replace files (not having to worry about odexes), but the main point was to deodex services.jar so that you can change all text to different colors (such as the clock color to white) and to deodex services.jar, you need to deodex everything.
• Dev. or Developer: An individual that creates, or alters a file in such a manner as to advance the program
• Flash or Flash Memory: a program technology that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed
• Kernel: The governor of the CPU useage and Battery output, one can upload certain Kernels to achieve greater performance speed of their device at the cost of some battery life
• Root: Common word associated with giving a user “super user” access to their phones programming and other various aspects that would normally not be possible, also known as “Jailbroken” for iPhone’s
• Nandroid or Nandroid Backup: A file typically created in the custom recovery program, such as SPRecovery, that is a carbon copy of whatever state your phone is in before a drastic change is made. the file then can be moved onto or off of the SD card for later use in case something should go wrong in the ROM or Update, or a Boot Loop occurs
• OS: Operating system, I.E. Windows Vista or MAC or ANDROID
• Overclocking: Speeding up the CPU past the factory presets to achieve a faster and more responsive device
• ROM: Read Only Memory, a program used to make changes to anything from the look of the home screen, to icons to custom boot animation
• RSD or RSD lite: Remote Software Download, Motorola’s own tool in flashing virtually any type of program, (so long as its in .sbf form) to the Android OS
• Shell or SSH: secure shell or ssh is a network protocol that allows data to be exchanged using a secure channel between two networked devices
• SPR or SPRecovery: A recovery program that is often used to apply updates, ROMs, or create a back up or restore a backup file
• Stock: Simply means an unaltered state, such as when you first purchase your phone from Verizon, or when you do a factory reset to “go back to stock 2.1″
• SU: “Super user”, or root permissions
• Theme: A set of icons, backgrounds and app trays that change the aesthetics of the overall look of the droid and its applications
• TUN/TAP: Refers to a network TUNnel, operates within layer 3 packets, or ip packets. Packets sent by a system via a TUN/TAP device are delivered to a user-space program that attaches itself to the device. A user space program may also pass packets into a TUN/TAP device. In this case TUN/TAP device delivers (or “injects”) these packets to the operating system’s network stack thus emulating their reception from an external source.
• Underclocking: Slowing down the CPU mainly to limit battery usage
• .sbf: Summation Briefcase File
• .apk or APK’s: An .apk file extension denotes an Android Package (APK) file, an .apk file can be opened and inspected using common archive tools
• .tar: Similar to a zip file, a tar file archives multiple files into one file
• .tgz: TGZ files are commonly used as install packages for Slackware Linux.

Thanks again to Sam Fisher!

Now, as an aside: fooling with your phone WILL void the warranty, so keep that in mind!!

~Sunny

My co-worker and I were talking this morning about the new phones that act as hotspots and what the difference was between that and phones that allow tethering.  To me, they seemed to be the same, but there is a difference!  After Googling and reading several different definitions, I found this on a T-Mobile forum and I think this fellow, Ed, says it best, although I have taken liberty to expound just a bit:

• 1. Wi-fi hotspot coverts your Mytouch 4G into a wireless router where you can connect up to 4 computers or devices, wirelessly, to the internet. USB or Bluetooth Tethering is when the phone becomes a modem and you can connect your laptop (I don’t know if you can connect a desktop) or tablet using the USB cable/ or Bluetooth  and after enabling your phone (going to Settings/Connect to PC/Default connection type/USB tethering) you can navegate the internet on your computer.
• 2. I can connect so far via USB tethering without paying, some claim they can also connect via Hotspot without paying, I haven’t been able to do it, may be I’m lacking skills.
• 3. Wi-fi hotspot goes against your data plan. Making phone calls on wi-fi goes against your minutes.
• 4. As I understand as long as you do not agree and sign up, even if you are able to connect via USB tethering and/or wi-fi hotspot, there shouldn’t be any charges.

Now, I need to point out, this came from a forum, so when it comes to the charges,  proceed with caution.  I know that I ‘tethered’ my Archos to my phone and did not suffer any additional charges.  I did not have to enable anything.  Actually, it wasn’t seeing my wireless network after I had connected to a friend’s network and later returned home, and it just picked up my phone’s bluetooth signal on it’s own.

~Sunny

1st adventure…………
Several months ago I discovered talk about an eReader, Pandigital Novel
(White), that had an Android OS and could be hacked into an Android tablet
(not quite as sophisticated, but still). It was being called the “poor mans”
iPad. Well, me being a “poor man” and preferring Android over iPad anyway,
thought what the heck. So I printed out my 20% off coupon and ran down to
Bed, Bath & Beyond and snatched up one of those suckers. For less than
$125.00 I was going to have a tablet!!! Well, then came the holidays. I got
busy and never got around to doing the hack. Imagine my surprise yesterday
when, checking the slatedroid forums for a different issue, I find out
accidently that Pandigital has gone with Open Source Android, and has an
update to that same end. No hacking necessary!! and the original Barnes &
Noble reader is included.  WooHoo!

The update does “wipe” the device though, so I had to re-download my B&N
books and put my music and pictures back in place. And due to a lot of
miscommunication, misreading and fumbling around the forums, I actually
“updated” 4 times before getting it right!!! (I am like a dog with a bone
sometimes) But, behold, I have my “poor mans” tablet, and I am very pleased!

2nd adventure………

Last year I really, really, really wanted an Android phone, but as noted
above I am in the “poor man” category. The LG Ally was a very inexpensive
way (back then) to get a phone with Android OS. Of course now there are many
more choices, but I still love my Ally! Anyways…….several months later,
while all my Motorola friends we getting their Android updates to FroYo, we
had been told not to hold our breath , we were not going to get the FroYo
Android update. It is highly desirable due to being able to put apps on
your SD card instead of the internal phone storage, but, I resigned myself
and was still happy with my phone, due to its cost (free!!)

Out of the blue last night my phone gets a system update right before going to bed. I let
it install and reboot and right away turn off the phone so I can go on to
bed. Once again, imagine my surprise this morning when I turn on my phone
and see my home screens are all changed. Hmmmmmm I wonder, did I possibly
get FroYo………..no way, not on the LG Ally, but maybe I will check my
version, just for the heck of it. Well, what do you know!!!! I DID GET
FROYO!!!!!!!!!! I checked the LG Ally forums and see that it was released
January 18th.

AMAZING!!! All in all it has been a pretty exciting DROID week for me

BJ Exum

Many of us jumped on the Android bandwagon, this past year, and continue to be excited about the changes that the Android OS is going through.   Now if you are like me, you probably just care about what version you are currently running, and what version you will be able to update to.  But, if you have wondered what the Android version evolution has been and what the difference is, the following is for you.  I grabbed this from Wikipedia