Develop Bugs

Since my thread was closed....

I was not expecting any more donations, it was intended to be a release to those that had already donated. I intended to let things die down on here before a public release here and my last public release here. Then everything was blown out of proportion and people felt that they were obligated to donate in order to receive it. I wanted it to be released for those that already had donated as a thank you for your support and that I would publicly release in about a week.
I can not help that people make assumptions, this is not my fault. I can not help it that Midget and JasJamming (AKA CRUSTEL) have to play games. It was done so I could decide if I wanted to publicly release or not because of recent events. If it would not have been here it would have been on my site.
So those that still feel as if I am "charging" for a M$ product so be it, I can not help how you perceive what my intentions were. The rom will be released here it is just a matter of when, and will be my final release on xda. All future releases will be on my site where I am not under the scrutiny of biased individuals.

Just as he said
I donated to Custel a few days ago. I had no expectations as I have donated to others as well. A short time later I received a PM with his beta. I did not ask for it and he did not request more donations. He only said for me to try it, not distribute and report back. I think he is being unfairly criticized. If others got the impression that he was requiring a donation then IMHO they are wrong.
I appreciate the hard work of the many talented pros on this and other sites. You have taken this gear we call a phone to a new level. Getting into pi**ing matches does not further the cause in the proper fashion.
I truly have no horse in the race here. I just want everyone to know that from my experience Custel was always above board.
Mark
nuff said

Nicely done, Custel. I've always had a feeling that you are a man of intellect and integrity, and I never doubted your sincerity, nor your intelligence when it comes to resale of M$ property.
I think you are owed an apology (yeah, wait for that), and recognition that you were mature enough to come back here and explain your intentions.
I wish you all the best luck with your new (and pretty slick) site, and with all your future endeavors.
Best regards,
-Paul

CUSTEL said:
I wanted it to be released for those that already had donated as a thank you for your support and that I would publicly release in about a week.
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Honestly, that is how I read your intentions to begin with. It's what ensued thereafter that made things appear 'underhanded' and perhaps get blown out of proportion.
While it's admirable to say that you 'weren't expecting any more donations' (and I take you at your word that you weren't), you should have backed that up with not accepting any more donations nor giving anyone but prior donors access to your pre-release until such time as you made a public release, wherever that may be.
That said, every indication was (and still is) that those who donate will be given access to your ROM and until that point is cleared up, your actions will remain questionable and under debate.
You do good work, CUSTEL. Don't let it be sullied by some silly scandal.

vp3G said:
Honestly, that is how I read your intentions to begin with. It's what ensued thereafter that made things appear 'underhanded' and perhaps get blown out of proportion.
While it's admirable to say that you 'weren't expecting any more donations' (and I take you at your word that you weren't), you should have backed that up with not accepting any more donations nor giving anyone but prior donors access to your pre-release until such time as you made a public release, wherever that may be.
That said, every indication was (and still is) that those who donate will be given access to your ROM and until that point is cleared up, your actions will remain questionable and under debate.
You do good work, CUSTEL. Don't let it be sullied by some silly scandal.
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Good Point, from this point on those that donate to receive will not be given access to it.

CUSTEL said:
Good Point, from this point on those that donate will not be given access to it.
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Glad you see as such. Yep, that's all you needed to do to put the brakes on this mess.

Custel the Best
It is unclear to me exactly what happened, and that isn't important. What is important is the deterioration of XDA-Developers. Some of the best cooks are leaving. If this trend continues, what kind of place will be left.
Custel - I will continue to run 2.5, it is almost the perfect ROM for me. Please try to work this out. Maybe some of the moderators will see what is happening.
Mark

And as far ass JazJaming and we know how the rest of his clan is i wouldn't worry too much about them, They know your work is good and thats what makes them mad. They know you have a short temper and they try to piss you off in every way they can I just hope that some of the few good Mods left on this forum will try to clean up some of the favoritism that has plagued this forum. If you leave the forum i wouldn't blame you and i would probably do the same
Good luck to you man, and keep up the great work you do for all the nerds and n00bs out there

not to sound like a d***
Custel - You can call requesting money for access to your work anything you want... call it donating if you desire but please understand that others will call this the way they see it. My personal opinion is that I will call a bird a bird and when someone requires a "donation" before granting access then they are "selling" it. Of course, these are just the words that I choose to use. /shrug

Despiadado1 said:
Custel - You can call requesting money for access to your work anything you want... call it donating if you desire but please understand that others will call this the way they see it. My personal opinion is that I will call a bird a bird and when someone requires a "donation" before granting access then they are "selling" it. Of course, these are just the words that I choose to use. /shrug
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Would you like a quarter?

Sounds like the right thing to do - BTW Syndicate looks good with the 'n' in it.

gregross said:
Sounds like the right thing to do - BTW Syndicate looks good with the 'n' in it.
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LOL smartass, hey it was made at 4am so yea... lol

CUSTEL said:
LOL smartass, hey it was made at 4am so yea... lol
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He he - the (syndicate) site looks great -hopefully all of this drama slows down soon ...

misfitflt said:
It is unclear to me exactly what happened, and that isn't important. What is important is the deterioration of XDA-Developers. Some of the best cooks are leaving. If this trend continues, what kind of place will be left.
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XDA-Developers isn't about cooking ROMs. It is our work that makes ROM cooking possible. For each and every device, we first take it apart and build tools to unlock CID and SIM. We do this at great risk to our expensive new devices. When finished with this part of our work, we have allowed the flashing of other operator ROMS. Then we begin to decode the ROM image itself and build the tools to manipulate it. Finally, we unlock the bootloader and make it safe for the masses to flash.
When this happens, chefs appear and custom ROMs are produced. Bickering and fighting occurs. N00bs are bashed. Yet XDA-Developers are mostly done at this point. Go back through the older device forums and find out what folks like Buzz Lightyear went through. It's a repeated cycle.
My hat is off to the Hermes XDA Developers: pof, Des, OliPro, Tadzio, Bepe, mun_rus. I shake my head in wonder at these folks as I use their tools and hard won knowledge to perform XIP grafts on my latest Hermes ROM.
XDA developers are application gurus too and we provide critical fixes/patches. I'm a part of this as are folks like SuperDave and ViJay555.
Hermes is at EOL. Be happy to know that we will once again begin taking apart the next big device. We are looking forward to Kaiser and the next set of challenges.
XDA developers won't die when the Chef's star fades with their devices. We will be doing what this site is all about: making your next device better.

why is everyone arguing? i thought everyone had a common goal!!

things will be much better when certain people get of there high horse I believe. the n00b bashing is almost a given I'm sure that will never change.

austinsnyc said:
things will be much better when certain people get of there high horse I believe. the n00b bashing is almost a given I'm sure that will never change.
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Must we remind you of your first few posts?

@Sleuth: A really nice, concise synopsis...it should be stickied as a solo post ... a motto ... a mission statement.
I've only been 'round these parts for a few months now, and have barely learned how to make use of the end-parts of this EOL, and I am forever grateful for the wonderful experience. I've learned some things, hope to learn more, and am enjoying the ride.
I thank you and all the geniuses on your list. This site is amazing! A real tribute to what this Internet thing could be. An educational tool and repository for historical knowledge. Better than any library ... bringing that knowledgebase first to our homes and businesses, and now, to the palms of our hands.
But I digress (15 hours of work will do that to you).
Thank you for that last post...I really enjoyed it after a very stressful day.
Kindest regards,
-pvs

pvs said:
@Sleuth: A really nice, concise synopsis...it should be stickied as a solo post ... a motto ... a mission statement.
I've only been 'round these parts for a few months now, and have barely learned how to make use of the end-parts of this EOL, and I am forever grateful for the wonderful experience. I've learned some things, hope to learn more, and am enjoying the ride.
I thank you and all the geniuses on your list. This site is amazing! A real tribute to what this Internet thing could be. An educational tool and repository for historical knowledge. Better than any library ... bringing that knowledgebase first to our homes and businesses, and now, to the palms of our hands.
But I digress (15 hours of work will do that to you).
Thank you for that last post...I really enjoyed it after a very stressful day.
Kindest regards,
-pvs
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I second that!! im very new here too and pvs is right, this place is better than a library!!

bennec83 said:
I second that!! im very new here too and pvs is right, this place is better than a library!!
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Never said i was never a n00b myself or an angel
Does pretty much suck that everyone is leaving Xda though

A Thank you.

I thought it was about time. I have been downloading stuff for about a year now.
Different software from different people and I thought it was about time to say it out loud.
This is really a great forum, and I wanted to take a few minutes to say I am very glad that all of us have found a great place to converge and share thoughts, ideas and silly musings and make our devices work the way they should; beyond the limitations the manufacturers intended and truly make them our toys, phones, and pieces of kit.
I think we all should be proud that we have taken a piece of gadget and truly taken it to the next level. Agreed?
Cheers!
-Mauricio

ABSOLUTELY!!! This site has been such a huge help to me. I was interested in upgrading to 6.0 and that's how I found this site. (Yeah, I'm a total newbie!) Sometimes it takes a lot of searching to find answers but I've never been unable to find an answer to any question I've had.
Thanks to this site, I've been able to get my 8GB microSD card working on my Hermes, satnav is now working and I also have a great ROM which does everything I want it to!! Thanks to everyone who makes this site so great!!!

Me too me too!!
I have to get on this train. I have been trying to get my Hermes upgraded to WM6 for several months now. Having bought the phone in Hong Kong, living in China and traveling to North America very often I had some unique demands from my PPC.
I have to give a big hats off to each and every one of you guys. I must agree with some searching I was able to read and learn. I would never have been able to do that without this forum.
Hopefully someday I can contribute more than just donations.
Thanks again.

Just a quick "Hello" and "Thanks"

Hi - I've been a frequent visitor to this site for a couple years, and created an account about a year ago, but never posted anything until today.
The first thing I want to say is a big, fat, THANK YOU to the site owners, the developers who provide these incredible apps, and my fellow members, whose knowledge & information has been invaluable.
Thanks to all of you, I learned about SERO, which, of course, makes my phone bill quite manageable at $30/month. You've also shown me how to make my phones work the way I want them to work, and look the way I want them to look; as someone who "needs" to customize everything, I'm eternally grateful for that!
I'm a Technology Specialist by trade, and a part of my job is to help people use the technology available to them (computers, software, peripherals, phones, etc.), and to provide customizations & solutions that help them do their jobs more efficiently, but I'm not a programmer.
Since I'm not a programmer, I really don't have much to offer here on xda-developers (which explains why my first post was 2 years in the making!), but I felt a little guilty about not expressing my gratitude for all I've taken from this site without giving anything back... So I hope my recent small donation is helpful, and I want you all to know I'm very appreciative of your efforts.
Thanks again,
Scott

Thanks. See my sig!

Cool Happy Flashing on XDA

[Q] Implement Reputation System?

Hey guys (mostly the senior/mod/admin folks, but anyone feel free to chime in). Could XDA implement vBulletin's (I think there is an official plugin/option... I may be wrong about this though; I cannot say for sure since I am not an admin on any site that uses vBulletin, $user = phpbbWhore reputation system? If it's not built into the latest version of the code, I'm sure there is a 3rd party plugin available from VBulletin's official site (I know of at least a few of those that exist and would help if needed).
My thought behind this is that sometimes someone posts some really useful information and adding a reply that says something like "+1 thanks!" almost seems like a waste of a post to me (I really dislike "filler"/OT threads, but I still want to give the person credit). However if I was able to give a person a point (+) or if someone was just being a jerk for no reason (-), I think more people would take the time to think before they posted. Plus, since we know "post count" mean nothing in terms of someone being a helpful person or not, this would allow new users to spot trustworthy/reliable folks.
My only qualm is that I don't know if XDA as a whole is mature enough to use this kind of system responsibly, but I have faith that any real abusers could be weeded out fairly quickly. I think it would be cool to at least trial run this. Thanks for your time .

Hi DeeBG,
Yeah, it's good idea generally, thou i'd prolly advocate XDA going a step further right off the bat, and implementing a point trading system as a supplement to the donate buttons, especially for those without easy access to paypal credit.
Reputation has issues when someone on the fringe of the group is battered down for being different. Like imagine someone says "Let's make an iPhone section!". They might lose a years reputation in like a day. At least with a point trading system you're dealing with actual assistance or virtual services, rather than base emotional responses or crowd bullying.
I'm still learning about XDA's donate system, which seems fairly arbitrary or opaque. Maybe someone can explain how well that system is working out so far.
Cheers.

Reputation is built into vB, looks like they opted to turn it off. Good thing, every forum I've been a part of / admin'd, it's been abused.

I7redd said:
Reputation has issues when someone on the fringe of the group is battered down for being different. Like imagine someone says "Let's make an iPhone section!". They might lose a years reputation in like a day. At least with a point trading system you're dealing with actual assistance or virtual services, rather than base emotional responses or crowd bullying.
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The reputation system only works through "thanks", doesn't it? So your reputation cannot get worse, but only better.
I7redd said:
I'm still learning about XDA's donate system, which seems fairly arbitrary or opaque. Maybe someone can explain how well that system is working out so far.
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It's not much of a system - you can donate directly to xda, which will help cover costs of running the servers, or you can donate to individuals (like me ) whose work you like.

Well there are really two types of systems. One is where you can give a thumbs up or thumbs down on a comment (sometimes represented by a [+] or [-] sign), and then there is the "Thanks" system, as seen on such sites as http://androidforums.com.
I agree that the first system can and sadly usually is abused (I think I saw it work well on one private torrent site I used to belong to a long time ago). There is a somewhat "pack mentality" that some users can fall into, whether someone is "outed" (falsely or not) for being an abuser of the forums or sometimes members are found "guilty by association".
I would like to see at least a "Thanks" system in place, again the folks at androidforums.com (which I'm sure at least some of you are also members at or at least have been directed to a post there before) have this successfully working within their vBulletin-powered site and would happy to help XDA admins if needed (not that I don't have faith in the XDA site owners/coders, you guys are pretty awesome yourselves =p). Of course I would be happy to lend my ~10 years of PHP/MySQL/etc experience to the process if it'd help.
I would start a public poll, but I think it's really in the interests of the site owners (also they can probably setup a more wide-spread poll than I can if they want public opinion).
Your friend in code,
DeeBG =)

I think it would be good to show appreciation to other users but It would be abused knowing that you can knock down someone's reputation (last thing we need is more flaming)

Captainkrtek said:
I think it would be good to show appreciation to other users but It would be abused knowing that you can knock down someone's reputation (last thing we need is more flaming)
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Yeah, that's why I think a system where you can ONLY give thanks would be cool. Again, forum admins, let me know if you need any assistance getting it up and working (it shouldn't add a performance performance hit to the backend database/system... the php code would be very light and the mysql db would maybe grow a few hundred kB since users without thanks wouldn't have any data).

Developer Bidding...
Livven said:
The reputation system only works through "thanks", doesn't it?
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Still open to cheating using multiple accounts to "Thank" themselves here and there and everywhere.
It's perhaps harder to gain anything with requests from yourself, and gifting points to yourself, while offering up public solutions. Thou i wouldn't put it past someone to try.
It's not much of a system - you can donate directly to xda, which will help cover costs of running the servers, or you can donate to individuals (like me ) whose work you like.
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Hmm... There seems to be a growing trend on XDA towards "donation requests" or "developer bidding" in certain forums. (see Xperia x10 Froyo request topic for example).
It involves people collectively posting that they will each donate a small amount to their favorite cause. (Android on Samsung Wave being another good example)
The current running tallies of offered donations is also interesting idea, thou there is some concern that those who have offered to donate $10 or $20 dollars will actually do so once the developers have done their magic.
Again, the opaque or arbitrary nature of hidden donations is a problem here.
Without going as far as escrow payments system (for requests that could likely need time limits and a refund), a basic "pre-paid" point system should work pretty well. For instance, once a task is completed the points could then be traded back for paypal dollars, completing the "circle of trust".
Any other ideas on this?
(or is there already an active "services" marketplace here somewhere that i've perhaps overlooked?)

[Q] defy desert xmas12/13

Hey guys,
just some thoughts on our beloved device.
Seems this christmas a lot of users are just switching to a newer device. It is a subjecive observation for sure, but as I started following the forums this summer (meaning 2012) and finally gathered enough "self-esteem" to "hack" my defy+ and flash a non-official software I noticed it is getting really silent on the forums right now. There are a lot of good reasons for that. Could be that this device just isn't able to catch up with all the official updates. I mean, everything after 2.3.6 was only possible through the help of voluntary developers. It is a miracle to have the latest versions of Android on this phone. And if you think about it (not aiming to reduse the effort of the community) it was mainly because of the leading (and voluntary) example of Quarx.
It is just how it goes. Now, a lot of users, being driven by their inhabited impulse of jelaousy just switch to a younger device. The media promotes it. The companies pay for it. My question is: why? I bought this device (defy+) in winter 2011 (one year ago). And advertising tells me it is time to get a new one? Are you nuts? I like things that pay out. This must be a joke. It is already a "outdated device"? Only because Motorola itself doesn't want to give an update? I am convinced, that if we the users don't change our attitude, then companies can play with us as if we were puppets until we die. But is the technique really outdated? Why do we need an upgrade? To get faster downloads at the bus stop? To get a faster connection at work (although there are already to pcs, that we could use). What are we practically using these new devices for? Is there such a big need to pay for these upgrades that advertising suggests if we don't really have a use for them?
The main thing, they are usefull for is communication. And do we really need the newest hardware for that? The defy is very capable of dealing with our needs! And for the software there might be an even better choice than sticking to Google's.
With seeing that developement of alternative software for the defy is diminishing, I would like to point to the developers that spend so much effort on this device to just take a break and then go into the developement of the Firefox OS with at least the same or even bigger ambition that you have put to Google's crap (Google still crap btw, we do not really know and can't really expect what they are working for to achieve but humanitarian goals aren't it).
Thanks for your contribution, I owe you a lot.

4cidj4y said:
Google still crap btw, we do not really know and can't really expect what they are working for to achieve but humanitarian goals aren't it
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Oh, man, how much do I agree on this! Very much!
Anyhows... I do agree with you, brother and I both bought DEFY's last winter and I don't see an ACTUAL reason to replace it... Yes, I would love a bigger screen, better camera, faster CPU, more RAM... But the truth is I don't need any of those, as the DEFY does everything I need. Texting, surfing, gaming, multimedia... I'm not going to change it soon. And I do hope developers will stick with it for a little while longer
Cheers, buddy!