[Q] Turning a 3GSlide into a Kids Training Phone - myTouch 3G Slide Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I am seeking any advice on turning my old 3G slide into a phone for my kindergarten age child.
The first thing I am pondering is how to make this phone work best without a SIM card in it. When I boot it up currently it complains about not having a SIM - I am not really planning to put a SIM in this so... is there a way to make that work more smoothly?
Beyond that I am open to any advice or suggestions on making this phone enjoyable and stable for a child to use in learning to manage the touch screen and some basic kids apps.
It will be used for learning games, watching netflix/mpegs and listening to music. It will be hooked to the WiFi at home so I am thinking I could even put Skype on it for him.
I am a somewhat advanced android user - rooted my own phone and tablet, put custom roms on, know my way around the file system and am more than familiar with *NIX commands so ... lay it on me!
(I am also hoping to put a Thundercats 'theme' on it with a new boot screen, new wallpaper and thundercats sounds ... I imagine I can find advice on doing that elsewhere but again, any advice at all is much appreciated!)
This is a Christmas gift but ... wanted to get started early. Thanks again. :cyclops:

Looks like putting it on Airplane Mode keeps it from caring about the SIM card - I can even turn wireless on with Airplane Mode on. Awesome.

Related

Anyone afraid of NAND flashing is a wuss. Check this out, its so easy..

These Instructions are out of date, and may not work anymore.
-CarComp
EDIT POST ON 5-5-2010
INSTRUCTIONS ARE IN BOLD!!!!!!!
EDITS AND MY OPINIONS ARE IN ITALICS
Want google and not winmo but can't wade through all of the confusion offered up by the supergeeks of android linux? Well just do these steps. It took me an evening to figure out these steps, and could whip it up instantly now.
BTW - it REALLY helps to have a computer with an SDcard slot adapter that handles the micro-sd cards. I don't really recommend trying all this with a USB cable, b/c once you get to linux only, you will kinda be screwed cause it doesn't quite work the same like windows CE. Also that and you can't format through the phone, so just get an adapter ok? Stop right here if you don't have one and just order one or go to walmart and spend 10 bucks and get one. BTW, your micro sd card should have come with one when you bought it, so go look for it.
Ok how to get the super Eclair android into NAND and live a happy life....
1, CHARGE YOUR PHONE UP ALL THE WAY BEFORE ANYTHING. When done charging, unplug whatever is in your USB port for the rest of this procedure. Having phone plugged in while flashing = BAD
2, get hard spl on your phone.
3, Install Hyperdragon IOlite on your phone to get the radio(1.65.24.36) that I recommend, which will improve battery life and possibly other things that I don't know about. Get it here -> http://sakajati.com/blogs/2009/02/hyperdragon-iv-iolite-based-on-htc-iolite/
4, format your 1+ GB sdcard using fat32 only.
5, download polyrhythmics dark / light build for nand and sdcard.
put that SINGLE FILE (androidinstall.tgz) into a folder in the root of the SD-CARD called "andboot" - Get it here -> http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=600154
6, go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/androidhtc/files/ and download KAISIMG-PANEL2-320-TILT.NBH if you have an ATT tilt. If you have something else, download that NBH.
7, Rename that NBH file to "KAISimg.nbh". Put it in the root of your storage card.
8. Now you are ready to install to nand. Get out your stylus, hold down the camera and power button and press the reset button with the stylus. It should go to an updating screen. If you don't get a white screen with a progress bar, but instead it still shows tri color and says "serial" then you did something wrong. Start over from step 1. Once you get to 100%, wait 20 seconds or something (just for shihtz and giggles) and then pull out the battery.
9. Now, put it back in, press power and wait for android to start booting. You will know cause all this random looking text will go by. You have to be quick to do it, but press the middle button on the d-pad when it says 'press the middle button to enter setup' or soemthing like that. (EDIT: I've been told that you have to just hold the d-pad center button down. Either way, just get that button pushed when it says to push it).
You will be presented with some options. Make sure the little asterisk is on the "NAND" option.
10. Go to the install (first option) and tell it to overwrite everything. It may ask you twice.
Now it should go into a fix of text and waiting and hanging, but be patient. You should eventually see a colorful "X" for about 10 minutes. Go to eat, have a beer, leave the house for awhile. Go mow the yard. Just don't use the phone. When you come back, go through the inital setup (touch the android, and skip everything else. Don't set up anything.) Now go mow the yard again. After about 5-10 minutes goes by, come back and pull out the battery. Put it back in and push power.
Crap your pants at the speed NAND offers. Install some live desktops (I like the starfield warp drive one from the google market.)
BTW: If you mess up your phone doing this, blah blah its not my fault blah blah you probably shouldn't be on these forums etc. Just make sure you have HardSPL and you will be fine. I've flashed hundreds of roms hundreds of times. Just that one little step will make your life easier.
EDIT:
RADIO DETAILS:
I've heard a LOT about using the latest radio or whatever version 1.71 or soemthing. I run radio 1.65 just fine. I never upgraded it through out all of the android builds. I operate like this.. If you weren't having cell quality issues, GPS lock issues, or any other radio issues in WINMO, then android will be fine too. I've added a step to the process to install a specific winMO rom that has the radio that I use. If you don't like the fact that I'm telling people to use an older radio, so be it. I'm just spreading the word for what works REALLY well for me.
EDIT: (My thoughts on the panel 1 2 3 and the 320 or 428 or whatever...) Picking the right panel is like playing the 'cups and ball' game. if you know which one the ball is under, you will win. Well for you TILT users, the ball is under #2. I don't know why, but it is. If 2 doesn't work, use 1. Doesn't get simpler than that. As for the resolutions, just use the 320. Ya, some apps fit better on the higher res, but our screens don't support them really well, and its all blurry. Think of it like this..... using 4xx instead of 320 is like asking 3 pixels to display as 1, vs. one pixel displaying as one pixel very clearly. Polyrhymic has done a great job supporting our screen's native 320 size, so just use it.
EDIT: (An issue i've noticed with booting and having your phone plugged in). Android just won't do it on nand. You can charge your phone from a dead point for say 20 mins, unplug it, then turn it on, boot android then plug it back in. You can't plug it in, and turn it on. It gets stuck in some sort of USB status loop.
EDIT: (When your phone just sits there on the A N D R O I D text and won't boot). Seems like this has been happening a lot, for me too. I've found there are two ways to stop this, one is preventative... Don't let your phone go totally dead. The second, when you reboot your phone, press and hold dpad center, then just count to 10 and go to the QUIT option. 9 times out of 10 it will boot right up.
IF YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS, JUST REPEAT THE PROCESS.. Don't skip the full charge and installation of Hyperdragon first.
for may people on here, the fear of flashing isn't the problem. it's the missing features such as bluetooth, speakerphone and in some builds even camera.
I would LOVE to go nand. I hate not knowing if the problem is with the build or with the sucky sdcard.
but I need to revert back to winmo for bluetooth headset. once that or speakerphone works I am ON IT.
Nice, couldn't have said it better myself, a few small points, press and HOLD the centre button on Dpad, a quick press will not do it, I'd mention the radio version too, but those are not major issues, and can be sorted easily enough
Good advice about the card reader and adaptor, those two saved my ass a few times in the early days of Nand flashing, I keep a good stock winmo kaisimg.nbh on a spare SD card, you only need a 128Mb one for a stock rom.
Yes there are install instructions on the build posts, but a lot of the info is now spread though some 2000+ posts, so having it all in easy terms helps a load.
I have a question. What is the different those PANEL1, PANEL2 and PANEL3? And the following number 320 - 428 - 480?
And one more silly question, is Tilt the one without 3G camera?
Thx for the instruction, it is easy to understand and so helpful!
added info about panel stuff to the instructions
It is not a fear of flashing in NAND It is just the issue that not all the features works...CAMERA,Bluetooth, voicesearch, so when the features will work than probably everybody will change I know i will ))
my problem is, that i cant get to boot the android for the second time. it just hangs in first screen after booting and thats it...
tried to pull out the battery for 10minutes and still nothing...
Disturbed21 said:
It is not a fear of flashing in NAND It is just the issue that not all the features works...CAMERA,Bluetooth, voicesearch, so when the features will work than probably everybody will change I know i will ))
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
agreed, currently no gps working map that can be rely such as garmin that can work on winmo.. 1 disadvantage of android.. need to be online to get route..
Kurt Cobain said:
I have a question. What is the different those PANEL1, PANEL2 and PANEL3? And the following number 320 - 428 - 480?
And one more silly question, is Tilt the one without 3G camera?
Thx for the instruction, it is easy to understand and so helpful!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
320-428-480 là chỉ độ phân giải đó bạn.
320 is a resolution of 240X320 and the 480 is a resolution of 320X480
Mình biết được chừng đó thôi
Created another edit to the 1st post.
I'm not saying that android doesn't have its shortcomings, I'm just offering a quick means to get to NAND without trying to comprehend the whole thing in the traditional sense of reading 200 threads.
BTW my radio is 1.65.24.36
Maranevin, try flashing Hyperdragon IOlite first. Maybe a radio switch will prod your phone into the correct direction.
Errr, for newbs who don't know how to properly unlock their device isn't this dangerous? There IS a possibility of bricking your phone if you don't know what you're doing -- right?
Anyway, I would also mention that if you or your phone can't do 3G don't flash to NAND yet. The radio can't be instructed to use GSM only with the current poly build (and any other I have tried so far)
I totally agree with mnjm9b, the problem is not flash the phone, the problem is that there are many things that do not. In particular I am very happy with the performance of 2.1g polymod to date is the best I've worked.
carcomp thanks for the help, very good summary.
aikeru, if someone is flashing a phone, they probably know the risks. Its not my fault if they do something stupid. Is it autozone's fault if I buy specialty tools and ruin my engine changing a timing chain?
Anyways, I don't get the 3g thing. We have hardly any 2g or whatever is below 3g here in Mulberry Indiana and my android works fine.
Like I said, maybe i've found that magic mix of things that works really darn good.
BTW: major argument for using android.....
First of all, i'm not borg. I have yet to really get into bluetooth. I own two earpieces and the only good thing i've found is you can talk on the phone in freezing weather with you hands in your pockets. Bluetooth to mute car radios is cool, but I have a 20 year old car. I don't need bluetooth for file transfer cause i've got wifi, and SD CARD.
Second, as for the speakerphone, it never really was that loud anyways. I came from a hermes, which has a speaker like the voice of god, so i've never been impressed with the kaiser speakerphone.
Third, the camera... I have a nikon D60 with a speedlight for taking stills and lowlights, and a Kodak Z612 in my wife's purse most all the time for the past 3 years for video and spot shooting. All this data easily goes onto the micro sd card and into the phone.....
carcomp said:
10. Go to the install (first option) and tell it to overwrite everything. It may ask you twice.
Now it should go into a fix of text and waiting and hanging, but be patient. You should eventually see a colorful "X" for about 10 minutes. Go to eat, have a beer, leave the house for awhile. Go mow the yard. Just don't use the phone. When you come back, go through the inital setup (touch the android, and skip everything else. Don't set up anything.) Now go mow the yard again. After about 5-10 minutes goes by, come back and pull out the battery. Put it back in and push power.[/B]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've done all step above, just when i did this After about 5-10 minutes goes by, come back and pull out the battery. Put it back in and push power. it started back to Step 9 when i had to 'press the middle button to enter setup'.
So, i skipped that step, and then later everytime i tried to press reset button, the phone is freeze, then i had to started over again...
In some cases, my OK button became to POWER button...
And at first time, WIFI was OK, then it showed Unable to start Wi-Fi
Any suggestion for my troubles?
Thank you!!
Great!!
Hi all, Great!! I am now running Android on my kaiser and I love it!!!
Just a couple of questions for people who can answer them:
- How to change phisycal keyboard layout? I mean, some keys that I have in blue aren't the same I have on my keyboard...
- Is there any means to connect to a pc to transfer contacts and files?
Thank you all!!
Gnatto
Maranevim said:
my problem is, that i cant get to boot the android for the second time. it just hangs in first screen after booting and thats it...
tried to pull out the battery for 10minutes and still nothing...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same problem here. Someone please help. My device is now a worthless brick!!!!
Ok when this happens (its happened to me), first of all don't panick. If you've installed hardspl you are protected, and besides, just cause your phone won't boot android doesn't mean its bricked, it just means its not booting android.
There can be a multitude of things causing this, but the #1 reason I think is "Just because thats how it is"
First of all, don't boot your phone with it plugged in. Ever. Charge it first, then boot it, or charge it enough to make it through boot then plug it in when it reaches android.
Second, sometimes during boot, it just hangs where it says A N D R O I D, or some other text. You can get around this by resetting with stylus, then pressing the center dpad button, then just counting to 10 or 20 or some random number that makes you happy, then select quit. It should boot.
Thanks. Fortunately I unbricked it by putting the KAISDIAG.NBH file onto the SD card, then booted it. This unbricked it. I also put the the KAISIMG.NBH for the Android on here and it booted into the installer. My problem now is that when I click install to NAND, it says it has an error extracting from the SD card for the android installer. It then quits back to the main install screen. I think it is a permissions error since it says on the screen something about being read only. If anyone could help me, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.
Oh and btw, I never had usb plugged in since mine is broken.
Ok well you are on the right track. Before you do anything else though, flash a copy of windows Mobile. Either take your pick, or use hyperdragon. Its very complete ... radio / ext rom etc. Next, try reformatting your SD card using windows. Do a complete format, not a quick one. That might help. Now reflash using the link to kaisnbh that i posted.
Remember, installing windows mobile is your NAND reset. Its lot like an sdcard where you can just erase everything. You have to put something else there that is radically different. I may be wrong about this, but it seems to be the case more often than not.
You may be one of the special case people who have a weird phone that takes one of the other KAISimg.nbh files too, so don't discount that. Also since you have hardspl, and you are flashing from the sdcard, you phone is probably NOT going to brick, and even if it does screw up royally, if you can still get to tri color, you can fix it.
Ok. That's great to know. I'll try what you stated. Do I need to partition my SD card? Thanks again. I really appreciate the help.

[Q] It's the small things that make me happy..

Loving the phone so far. In addition to what is already obvious, there are a couple things that really make me love the phone.
Notification LED! I've had HTC phones over the past few years and I've always hated that it had two colors for notifications. Amber and Green. I just discovered this phone will accept any custom color you throw at it! And you can actually see it clearly!
Another thing? I can see my "5G" wireless router (dual band) connection. It's only the second device I have that sees it. PS3/Xbox, my old Thunderbolt, my old laptop, etc don't see it, but my new laptop and GN does. yay.
And I suppose another thing is the ability to access the SD card without fumbling through the notification screen to turn it on. It's always there on my computer when it's connected via SD. Oh, and the file copy is as fast as I've seen on any phone I've owned.
Any little things making you geeky happy? (Didn't mean to hit the question option. Oops)
craighwk said:
Loving the phone so far. In addition to what is already obvious, there are a couple things that really make me love the phone.
Notification LED! I've had HTC phones over the past few years and I've always hated that it had two colors for notifications. Amber and Green. I just discovered this phone will accept any custom color you throw at it! And you can actually see it clearly!
Another thing? I can see my "5G" wireless router (dual band) connection. It's only the second device I have that sees it. PS3/Xbox, my old Thunderbolt, my old laptop, etc don't see it, but my new laptop and GN does. yay.
And I suppose another thing is the ability to access the SD card without fumbling through the notification screen to turn it on. It's always there on my computer when it's connected via SD. Oh, and the file copy is as fast as I've seen on any phone I've owned.
Any little things making you geeky happy? (Didn't mean to hit the question option. Oops)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no SD card on this phone. When you connect it to the computer it 'mounts' the media partition like it's a flash drive though, so that's what makes it so easy to use.
What I'm happy about with this phone is they put back the silent->vibrate->sound sequence in the volume rocker. Google took that out of stock Android with 2.2.

[Q] Any hope of recovery?

I'm pretty sure I know the answer but I need to hear it from the experts before moving forward. Last week I received a phone call and ignored it. About 30 minutes later I turned the phone on to see who it was and the screen was frozen at the receiving call screen. Strange but ok. Pushed the power button off then on and still frozen. After a battery pull it reboots but doesn't go past the Samsung splash screen. Another battery pull with the same result. I put it on the charger and let it stay that way for a while but no progress. Another battery pull and reboot, though, and now I have a blank screen with the dreaded solid blue light. Can't get into recovery with volume up or down and power...
My phone was rooted and running an older version of Paranoid Android with no issues. I hadn't flashed or really done anything out of the ordinary with it for at least a month. Plus I had just replaced the battery a few weeks ago.
I did take it to the Sprint store and they determined it was a bad charging port. I'm 99% sure that wasn't the issue since I get the same result with a fully charged battery but if that makes them happy then ok. I just received my replacement E4GT in the mail and wanted to see if there was anything I can do to recover some things off of the old phone before I return it. My computer doesn't recognize it and, like I said, I can't get into any recovery. I hate to lose a bunch of photos and videos of the kids but it looks like this is my lesson to start a backup plan. Is there any way I can retrieve anything from the old phone? Thanks for any advice!
tony
In the future use drop box, it can back up all that stuff that we all cherish on your phone.
Maybe jtag?
Pp.
sent from a jellybean filled epic touch.
Ok so if you had Google's sync on then, with auto-instant upload to Google+ then it is backed up in a totally private album. Just log into your google account on your new e4gt. If and only if your lucky, stuff might be there. Or if you had a memory card just plug it into your desktop or laptop and it might just be there.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
Thanks for the input. Unfortunately I didn't have G+ sync on and was saving most everything onto the phone instead of the SD card. Stupid mistakes to learn from...
tony

[Q] Power question and opinion on ROM

Hi,
Just wanted to ask a quick question and get some opinions on roms if possible. The plan is to turn the wifes old evo into a dashboard for use when sim-racing (iracing) There is an app that you can download for android and the pc running iracing, that pulls data from the game and sends it to the phone over the local network.
First thing I am wondering. Is there any way at all to modify the phone to be able to run permanently wired, and without the battery? The plan is to mount the phone onto the steering wheel itself, just below the top of the rim, between the drivers thumbs. Id like to make the phone as light as possible to reduce inertia. I already plan to dis-assemble the phone and lose as much of the casing as I can.
Next is the rom. Any thoughts on what would be the best ROM for my situation? My only concerns are stability, ability to run the iracing dashboard app, ability to turn off screen rotation, ability to leave the screen on constantly. Battery life--- If I am unable to hard wire the phone, and have to run off the battery.
If this has been asked and I missed it in search, my bad.
thanks for any help

Broken screen, how do I get my data back?

Hello everyone!
I've had a Galaxy Nexus for the past two years. The screen has been broken for the past year and it did give up eventually. Recently replaced with the newest Nexus (very happy but that's not the point of this topic), I wish to get all my data back from the GN, which means photos, texts, videos, some files ...
I feel like the phone still works, despite the screen being pitch black all the time, as I still hear the sound of notifications when I receive an email, or message through WhatsApp or Kik.
I can't get the data back by just plugging the phone in the computer as even though the phone is recognised, I can't explore the SD card (guess it has to do with the fact that I had to unlock the phone before using it, but I'm not sure).
My question is: how can I get into the phone and get all this back?
I'm willing to try anything that might work (I won't summon one of Satan's minions for this though)
Thank you so much for your help,
Fae

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