Flashing Cyanogen on your rooted HTC Desire

So if you have followed the one-click root process to root your HTC Desire, here’s the next step from there.

Now that you have root access what are you going to do about it! Well, you flash a ROM of your choice. I chose Cyanogen which is supposed to be one of the best ones, and with a not so complicated process.

Here’s everything you will need:

• Download the latest version of Cyanogen. I’m using 7.1.
• Download Google Apps (This is optional, I did not need this. I manually downloaded the google apps)

Pre-Flash Process:

• Connect your phone to the computer.
• Mount as Disk Drive.
• Find your phone as an extra drive under ‘My Computer’, open it up and place both the .zip files in your SD Card. Remember both these file names!
• Turn your phone off. Unplug from computer.

Flash Process:

• Hold your phone’s power key & volume down key at the same time, until the screen comes on. It should load into what is called the Bootloader. (You will know you are on this screen if you see 3 android bots at the bottom on skate boards)
• You have to use the volume keys to navigate and the power button to select
• Select Bootloader > Recovery. You should now be led to a black screen with green text.
• Now use the trackball to make selections. Not the buttons.
• Select ‘Backup & Restore’ – this will create a nandroid
• Next select ‘Wipe Data/Factory Reset’
• Next Select ‘Wipe Cache Partition’
• After this is done, select ‘Install Zip from sd card’. Scroll down to the .zip file that has CM7 and select it. Let that flash. You should see a screen that has a box, an arrow coming out of it with the android robot next to it. It should have a progress bar at the bottom.
• If any time during this process your screen hangs, press the power & volume up button. It should go back to the previous screen. Make sure all your selections on the black screen with green text is done with the trackball.
• After this is done, do the same for the Google Apps if you have that file.
• Once you are done flashing your ROM, press the back key & select reboot.

Your phone will now load into Cyanogen 7.1 with Android 2.3.7 which is Gingerbread!

The first start up may take awhile, don’t panic. In a few seconds (which will seem like forever), you will see a blue android bot, skating across your screen. Say Hi! He is the Cyanogen Android robot!

Doubts/Queries : in the comments section. I will be happy to answer them.

Post Dedication: This post goes out to a 16 year old boy named Stephen, who is only 16 but knows everything there is to know about android phones. He was online the whole time, helping me out as I got stuck. Follow him on @stephnd on twitter!

 

 

Rooting the HTC Desire

After a year of enjoying my HTC Desire as it came, I finally gathered the courage to root it. You need not just courage but enough reason to root your phone. It is a stressful, exciting process leaving you very hungry!

My Reasons to root are as follows:
1. Battery life
2. Low Memory Problems
3. No Gingerbread update from Desire.
4. Wanted more apps on my phone.
5. A year old phone. I could either now change it or root it and make it brand new.
6. Also, My phone turns a year old on Oct 29th, & what better present could I give it, than a completely new look?

With my reasons in place to root and the courage I needed to go ahead, I finally decided that October 26th, 2011 would be the day I would choose to root my phone.

I chose the easy one click root method by unrEVOked. This root program was orginally developed for the HTC Evo but can be used for quite a few other HTC phones as well.

Pre-Root Process:

• Click on the link above. select your phone model and let that download and install into your computer.
• Install the hboot drivers, using these instructions. After you finish the process, hit the power button till you reach the first screen and select reboot, which should restart your phone. (Note: This step voids the warranty)
• unrEVOked should be downloaded by now, make sure you install it some place you remember.
• Make sure HTC Sync is uninstalled on your computer.

Root Process:

• Open reflash.exe (unrEVOked), with your phone plugged in to the computer. Ensure that HTC Sync is uninstalled without which the root will be unsuccessful.
• When unrEVOked detects your phone, it will prompt you, before it starts the root, click okay and the root should begin.
• unrEVOked will prompt you when the root is complete. You can check this by going into Menu and checking if you have SuperUser rights. If you do, your phone is successfully rooted. (Note: There is a chance you may have to try this a few times till it succeeds. I had to about 5 times. But if it still ain’t successful, try a factory reset and then root. If you don’t want to do a factory reset, ping me in the comments with your dropbox ID and I will share with you another version of unrEVOked that worked for me)

Congratulations! Your HTC Desire is now rooted. Your phone can now be restarted and used with the bonus of root permissions!

Next Step – Flashing a ROM of your choice and moving up to Gingerbread.

Disclaimer: If you are choosing to follow this process of rooting and my recos, I am in no way responsible for any damage caused to your phone.

 

Religion? I don’t believe in that!

Here’s a post that is inspired because of the awkward situation that I am continually in, which ends up me leaving people awkward as well.

A lot of people this year have invited me to come over to celebrate Diwali. Why don’t I celebrate other festivals except those that involve Jesus, well here goes.

I believe in a gospel that imparts love, that is backed up by science and history. Am I Christian? No. Do I believe in religion? No. On the contrary, I am a follower of Christ. I believe not in religion but a relationship. Is this possible? Sure it is! God is our Father. If you can have a relationship with your earthly father, why not your Heavenly Father?

To continue: I would wish to ask reader’s a question, those who believe in God, as well as those who do not.
If you were to die today, do you know where you would go? Or is that something that you are working on everyday to achieve, or have you stopped working on it and have decided hell is going to be fun? Or is that something you want to drive towards when you are old and are done having the fun of your youth?

Man:
Do you know that we are all born sinners? Sure we are! We sin everyday. If not in deed, then in thought. You lose your temper, tell small lies, think evil of people in our heads. And this happens everyday, without even knowing. If we sin everyday can you imagine how much sin you have committed by the end of your life, even if you ain’t a murderer or a thief?
Do you think God does not know that – Of course he does. So wait! what does that mean? We all go to hell? Sure, we do! We cannot save ourselves by good deeds, or good works because no matter what we do, we cannot match God’s holiness. But…

Heaven:
Is a free Gift.
(Romans 6:23 says The reward for sin is death, but the gift that God freely gives is everlasting life found in Christ Jesus our Lord.)

It cannot be earned or deserved.
(Ephesians 2: 8-9 says God saved you through faith as an act of kindness. You had nothing to do with it. Being saved is a gift from God. It’s not the result of anything you’ve done, so no one can brag about it.
For example: When your friend gifts you something, if you offer to pay for it, you are offending your friend. Similarly by trying to earn your place in heaven, you are doing the same thing.

God:
God is merciful and therefore does not want to punish us.
1 John 4:8 says The person who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, because God is love.

But God is also just and therefore must punish sin.
Exodus 34: 7 says He continues to show his love to thousands of generations, forgiving wrongdoing, disobedience, and sin. He never lets the guilty go unpunished, punishing children and grandchildren for their parents’ sins to the third and fourth generation.

Christ:
Who is He? He is the God-Man, who came on to earth died on the cross to pay the price for our sins, so that we receive a place in heaven.
Why could He do it? Because He was the only pure sacrifice available for God, blameless and without sin. A sacrifice that would be pleasing to God & a permanent one.
Why couldn’t an animal be used instead like people did in the old days? An animal only poses as a temporary sacrifice which is why God gave us a permanent solution.

Faith:
IS the key to heaven.
What is Faith? Faith is not head knowledge about everything you just read.
James 2:19 says You believe that there is one God. That’s fine! The demons also believe that, and they tremble with fear

It is trusting in Jesus Christ alone for your eternal life and a place in heaven. All you have to do is believe and have FAITH in everything you just read. Believe that Jesus can do it for you.

This is what I believe in. The Gospel of Love, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of Life & of Truth.

No other God/Man has done this, which is why I do not participate in any dedications to them. I want that place to belong to Jesus Christ alone & worship only Him, acknowledging only what He has done for me.

Questions?

 

Book Review: Saint Patrick by Jonathan Rogers

The Story:
Saint Patrick by Jonathan Rogers is about Ireland’s well known saint.

The book is about Saint Patrick who comes from a well known, well to do family. At a very young age he was taken away from the comfort of his family & sold into slavery into Ireland. He very faithfully worked as a shepherd in his new master’s home and kept the values he carried on from his family.

Eventually, he found a way to escape. The part of the story that touches you is how after returning home, Patrick felt God tell him to go back and preach the gospel to his land that took him captive.

What did Patrick do? He listened to what God was calling him for and let them into the Christian faith, baptizing thousands.

The Book:
The Story I think is one that could touch a million souls, one that stands out. On the other hand, I think that I have read books that have been able to keep me better involved and captivated with the story.

I would say Jonathan Rogers hasn’t done justice to the story, as beyond a few pages – it took a lot of effort for me to continue reading further.

Would I recommend the book?
Errmm.. Sure I would. But if you got it free, definitely not something I would spend money on.

 

Oreo India’s Facebook Page

So I was checking out the best Facebook brand pages around & I came across the Oreo India Facebook Page.
For starters, you must know I am not an Oreo Fan: I don’t love it, I don’t hate them, I do not think they are cookies, to me they are just chocolate cream biscuits – but their Facebook Page – I”M IN LOVE WITH!

So as any other page I landed on their welcome page which was an advertisement about McFlurry, they drink made with Oreo biscuits available at McDonald’s – telling you of the McDonald’s closest to you so you could go grab yourself a drink. Their page didn’t refresh after I ‘liked’ it, but I went on to check it out further.

So here is what really caught my attention. As I checked the other tabs, I noticed Oreo celebrating 500,000 fans on their page. Here is something I haven’t ever noticed any other page do. Of course every other page does their share of celebrating the mile-stones they reach, but involving their brand so well? I think Oreo has definitely set the benchmark. Take a look at it – 500,000 Celebration

Besides that their wall posts overall are generally very chilled, fun-loving & friendly. They have been celebrating an Oreo Togetherness Movement : celebrating World Family Day & focusing on the importance of spending quality time with Family. They also have branded commonly played games with the Oreo biscuit and the blue background, posting scores to your wall & increasing it’s virality.

For those of you who love Oreo, of course you will love this page. But for others like me, you will definitely fan this page as well just because of how awesomely done up it is.

If anyone knows of the digital agency behind the Oreo India Facebook page, let me know in the comments section. I’m super curious & Google ain’t helping out.