AT&T-Mobile merger: failure or brilliant bait and switch?

I know MANY in the community are ecstatic that the merger above didn't go through, but there's one HUGE thing people have missed. Anyone read about the fallout? Yes or no, go here. Read the last sentence of the first paragraph again. Note "mutually beneficial roaming agreement." So, AT&T wanted access to T-Mobile's spectrum and Deutsche Telekom wanted out, but got a bribe to stay in. AND access to AT&T's spectrum to stay competitive. Anyone see this as a legal loophole kinda like those plan B articles in the last few weeks? Are you now? Thought so. I want to know your 2¢. Please post below.

From Ace to Infuse: Read the effin manual!

As a Customer Service Representative and a community Developer (still getting used to not thinking of myself as a pseudo-dev) there are some times when your job and your hobby converge. This is a story of not only that, but also my near bricking of a device and MY fixing it cause I've done my homework.

But first alittle background... When I got my Thrill secondhand, I had no way to be able to spend the $250 and keep it. I had intended to buy and resell it, but fell in love with the pseudo-stock interface. I sold-traded my Infuse for the Inspire (a device I had previously) and was thinking about rooting it when another of my coworkers proposed a sell-trade for a Captivate. I knew I needed to root it for my co-worker and promptly looked into it. I had remembered that @attn1 had just discontinued his Advanced Ace Hack Kit (or AAHK for short) in the few days prior (now back up and available) and so I pulled out my XTC clip and was preparing to root it...  I'll continue this story after I tell you about someone I dealt with on the phone this week.......

Now for the real reason for this post... Those who follow me know I've done extensive kernel work on the Infuse (BIG thanks to everyone else in the Infuse thread, LinuxBozo and Entropy512 to name a few), so it wasn't a shock that I had someone on the phone with one. What was a shock however was the issues this person was having.... When the phone was booting, there were strange colors, and the camera wasn't working properly. I calmly explain that it seems that something is wrong with the software. He explains that his Android Version is Gingerbread, 2.3.... =-O [mentally] WAIT A MINUTE! There's no Official update for 2.3 yet... *palmface* [/mentally] He had flashed the Rogers GB on the Infuse. Symptoms include Rainbows on boot and issues with camera and video playback. Fix is either flash of a compatible kernel (my Infusion kernel it another kernel) or flashing of stock/leaked firmware. I knew I couldn't really advise that, so I calmly advised that flashing any non-approved firmware voids his warranty and still transferred him to the warranty department.

And now back to MY adventure: In the process of making my Gold Card and s-offing my Inspire, I wiped the whole device minus bootloader and fastboot.... gone, poof, adios. Fuuuuuuuu....... But then I remembered that in the process of rooting, the downgrade and rooted rom are installed by Bootloader zip file. I knew that the official GB update on HTC's site would have this and I promptly found how to get the zip from the temp folder, I renamed it PD98IMG.zip and moved it to my SD (through my Thrill), Re-installed the firmware, replaced the psneuter in the OLD simple one click (pictured below) and ran it. Worked like a charm.

The moral? Please, please, please either learn how things work with your phone so you can fix them when you muck them up or READ THE EFFIN MANUAL!!!

Thank you,
-B

It feelz good.....

You know it feels really good to not only have an application for a job you're looking for internally, but also another that seems like it would be easier internally and one that is external that you actually feel qualified to fill. Things MAY be looking up at the moment! Woot!

Now with the formalities out of the way, I might as well introduce the cast of our adventure....

First off is a picture of my wife and I. Here's the two of us from close to 4 years ago, about a year after our Son was born..... 

Speaking of, here is Said Boy... Let's call him P for the sake of argument. He's wearing my custom DarkDroid android Beanie, custom modified from someone in the community after it was made in a limited run and passed to me for something I did within the community. I'm up to my neck in the Android community and tinkering in general if you haven't guessed. I'm over at XDA-Developers as Bedwa as well, and on Twitter as the same. 

And to add to the adventure, my boy was born as a preemie, completely full of it at this point as he looks to turn 5 on Christmas, and oh, did I mention we're expecting a Girl? Well... photographic evidence.....

This may be the closest we will have to seeing my wife's face in a picture again.... she IS photogenic, but doesn't like having pictures taken very often. But here's myself and my family, feel free to comment, and let me know your opinions!

Welcome to Ztrange Brew

First off, as an individual, this blog is my own opinions, no opinions of my company, but of my own. No leaks of my company will be provided here as per my company policy, so please, do not try.

With that out of the way, I'm Bedwa. A Wireless industry CSR for 4 years for one of the BIG Four cellular providers, a Android enthusiast that has build kernels for the Infuse 4G and LG Thrill (current project) and an all around tech/tinkering geek. I'll be here for a while to ramble on about multiple things, but mainly about life in general. Enjoy the stay and look for a fun ride!

-Bedwa