As unlocking bootloaders becomes harder with each update, rooting android phones seems to get easier and easier. I found Motochopper by Dan Rosenberg on http://www.droidrzr.com/ and used it to root a Motorola Razr MAXX HD. It was as easy as running a simple bat/bash script and clicking Enter.

It doesn’t get much easier than that! The whole process only took a few seconds to complete. I used the run.sh script from OpenSUSE 12.3. But it’s reportedly just as easy from windows. I’m not responsible for your voiding your warranty, bricking your phone, or any of that other fun stuff. So don’t unlock features for yourself, don’t free yourself from forced apps, don’t unlock your phone. There I said it.

Anyway, the easiest way to test to make sure your phone is actually rooted is to go to the Google Play app store and download an app intended for use on a rooted phone such as Titanium backup, Rom manager, or simply root checker.

Here’s the sha1sum of my downloaded motochopper.zip
7556521bd9a7ff678e992b1d79a0fb64de71a73e

My carrier, Verizon, are particularly bad about adding their own bloated apps. But in the latest versions of android, disabling most of the bundled apps is trivial without even the need for root … Read More »

There’s a couple of things that Galaxy Wars does right. Using structures that feed off of each other is one of them. The animation and wide range of enemies is nice too. But let’s not get too excited by the flashy shiny. The Lets take a look at the different towers and note their respective strengths and weaknesses.

Get to the android market and download those apps. There’s some good stuff available right now. Games, utilities, launchers, etc. And if you buy something and you don’t like it, simply refund your money within the trial time period and you’ve lost nothing!

You put a quarter in at the top, and it falls onto a tray that pushes a pile of coins toward you. Any coins that fall off the front of the machine are yours to keep. Sometimes you’ll find other prizes interspersed among the coins.

When you carry a smartphone such as an iPhone or Android phone, you’re accepting the fact that you may be giving up a certain level of privacy. Most people are completely ignorant of this, and many others choose to ignore the whole situation. Data mining doesn’t just look at one data set in order to analyse a subject, it looks at a multitude of factors. Phones have turned from simple calling devices to full blown portable computers. The avenues of attack on privacy have increased exponentially.

on’t call it a point-to-point phone network, that might scare small children. How about network-free communication or a self-organizing self-powered temporary network? Mobile phones and tablets communicating with each other without the need of infrastructure, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!

An unlucky victim had her iphone erased by mistake. This was made possible because she had an application that allows her to sync with a Microsoft Exchange Server. Even though this was her own person phone, an Exchange admin was able to wipe out her data. Keep backups of your data, limit access controls, and be mindful anytime you install or update an application.