How to Root your phone?

So, you are a proud owner of new and shinny top of the line Android smartphone. You played with it, it is always in your hands or in your close proximity, you have explored every inch of that gorgeous  screen and abused all of it's settings hoping to find a last hidden option that you somehow missed . But yet, you still find yourself wanting, demanding more! More themes, more settings, more applications, more of everything.  If this is the case than you might be affected by chronic smartphone dependency and you are in need of an urgent treatment. The cure is quick, works like a charm every time and it simply implies applying a bit of "root" to your smartphone.

Before you attempt to root your precious device, make sure that you have done your part of reading. The most important aspect here is to be well informed and conscientious in following the necessary steps to successfully root your phone. Informing yourself about the basics of rooting can be achieved in the best place on the internet to find rooting guides and custom ROM's and that place is definitely  +XDA Developers Forum. Once you get yourself comfortable with +xda-developers , search for a topic specific to your device and it's almost certain that you will discover a method for rooting that has been tested before and proven to work for everybody.  XDA Developers Forum is the most trustworthy source for rooting guides.The time spent researching the right method to root your device will be also useful in your future technical endeavors.

Rooting preparations

You start by making sure that your smartphone is fully charged. You will also have to turn USB debugging option on in your phone (you can find this option under settings/developer menu on most phones) Also, most likely, you will be plugging your phone in your computer in order to root it and to do that you need appropriate USB drivers that you will find on the website of your phone manufacturer.

Installing Android SDK on your PC is a must and you may also find that other software is required. So, make sure that you install all the software that you need before proceeding further.

• One-click rooting

The easiest way of rooting your android smartphone is by far SuperOneClick. This method also supports a large variety of devices and it's the most secure and trouble free way of rooting your phone. Of course, there are other one-click-root solutions out there but we will focus for now on SuperOneClick. Let's get started:

1. download SuperOneClick
2. make sure you have the Android SDK running on your PC 
3. unzip and run SuperOneClick.exe 
4. make sure your phone is connected to the computer via USB 
5. check and make sure that your SD card is not mounted 
6. just go ahead and click “Root” in SuperOneClick on your PC 
7. the magic unfolds now 
8. after "Succes" check if you have SuperUser icon on your phone. If you have it than you are OK. 
9. This is it. You are done! 

See, wasn't that hard after all. You Sir, have just rooted your phone and a world of geeky wonders awaits you: custom ROM's, overclocked processors, thousand of themes, deep customization and tones of new way to control your newly reborned smartphone.

Happy Rooting everybody!

By Aleman Adrian

What is Android?

It has been back in September 2008 that a little chubby green robot made it's first public appearance on a mobile touchscreen device. Almost 5 years later, and the Android robot is stronger than ever.  Google's mobile operating system has been incredibly successful in managing to find it's way to almost every smartphone and tablet out there. Still, there are folks who wonder about the green robot, finding themselves in a middle of a little puzzlement, trying to understand what it all means. If you find yourself in this category than consider this article as a crash course in all things Android. Keep on reading and the uncertainty will end here! 

What is Android?

 

To cut a long story short, Android is the world's most popular mobile operating system and it can be found mostly on smartphones and tablets.

Android is a Linux-based mobile phone operating system that is actively developed and owned by all mighty Google. What differentiate Google's Android operating system from Apple's iOS mobile operating system or Microsoft's Windows Phone is the fact that Google is giving it away for free to different hardware manufacturers like Samsung, Sony, LG, Motorola or HTC to name just a few. This companies can than add their own twist and customization's to the vanilla software provided to them by Google and that is way you will find a galore of Android user interfaces on smartphones. But, at their core, all of them have inside Android's green robots.

Google is constantly developing and updating Android software and this updates normally come out every six to eight months. Android software versions usually arrive with codenames that are named after desserts like Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich and with the latest and greatest  being Jelly Bean. The next Android iteration will be called Key Lime Pie. Hungry for more? Read on!

So, what can i do with an Android phone? 

Mostly, all you can think about. From simple tasks like reading your favorite newspaper, writing an email or diving yourself deep in to social networking, listening music or watching HD videos to more complex tasks like finding your way through the world by using your phones GPS navigation or counting every single calorie that you had burned on that last wild bicycle ride through the woods!

The open nature of the Android mobile operating system offers application developers a lot of room to maneuver. Most of the flagship phones have a plenitude of hardware sensors on their insides and outsides like temperature & humidity sensor, accelerometer, barometer, GPS, proximity sensors and many others ( over 10 sensors are present in some cases ) and by combining this hardware sensors with software wizardry you will be amazed by the ingenuity, resourcefulness  and inventiveness of some application developers.

What are these apps i keep hearing about and where can i get them?

You can  literally find hundreds of thousands of apps and games available in Google Play Store. It is predicted that in June 2013, the one million available application holy grail will be reached and surpassed. Most of them are free for you to download and use (in some cases advertising will be displayed), for others you will have to pay a small fee and lastly, there are a few application with monthly subscription. 

In Google Play Store you can find applications for photo editing, video editing, weather forecast, productivity application like calendars, document editing applications and office surrogates, application for fm or satellite radio listening and music&video players. And this is just the the tip of the iceberg. You can find apps that track your daily calories intake, track you sleeping habits or count your every step you take, application that can tell you how long was your last jogging session, what was your average heart rate or how many calories you have burned.

And of course there are games. Games! Unless you have been living under a rock for the last couple of years, you've probably heard of and played Angry Birds, Temple Run, Diamonds Blaze and many others, the list can go on forever.

As more and more software developers tend to build platform agnostic applications, you can rest assured that you will always find applications that will suit your every need.

 Who makes Android smartphones? Now i really want one!

All the major consumer electronics manufacturers like Samsung, LG and Sony are producing top of the line smartphones. HTC is specialized in producing only smartphones and they are pretty successful at doing just this. Google also is a big player in this market through his own line of products, Nexus, which are manufactured under licence by LG, Samsung or Motorola, the last one being acquired by Google last year. The Chinese are present ( how could they not be?) in this emerging market through their own brands, most notably ZTE and Huawei.

Not every android smartphone is created equal and not one is alike. They come in many different colors, shapes, sizes and specific hardware configurations. Some have dual, quad or even octa cores incredibly fast processors, others have 10 or 12 MPx powerful cameras and most of them have gorgeous big 4' to 5' inch AMOLED or LED touchscreens.

Some of the most popular android smartphones on the market now are Samsung Galaxy S4 (1080p, 4.9' Amoled screen), Google Nexus 4 (720p, 4.7' Lcd screen) and, my favorite, the beautifully and carefully designed HTC One.

Closing words

Google's android ecosystem is constantly growing and expanding enveloping in the process big chunks of smartphones market. Even more than this, android is fast in establishing itself as the #1 player on  tablet market to. So you see, there's really no escaping from Google's green robot embrace. If you plan to become a well informed citizen in all things android, visit this blog regularly and i will do my best to keep you updated with the latest developments and fresh details regarding Google's smartphone&tablet operating system.   

By Aleman Adrian