Rooting HTC Hero

[shoes]

GK you mentioned that your Hero was rooted and from my limited research I see that the main advantages of this are memory usage and homebrew apps.

How did you root you Hero? I have found a few tutorials but always seem to get thwarted by dodgy download links or the fastboot not working with the img i downloaded. Have you got any one recommended tutorial for busting open one of these heros?

Also, standard noob question - do i have to reinstall all my apps after i have blah blah blah..... etc.

 

[shoes]

Ok I managed it using this tutorial - very easy actually! Can now use shootme. How do I best set up memory usage so that the hero runs faster? Presuambly by moving applications onto the SD card and then letting the phone use internal memory as ram?

 

[shoes]

I have successfully wirelessly tethered using wifi now. Maintained around 300 kbps which isn't too bad, worked well from 15ft too!

 

[db]

right, i'm fed up of hearing people claiming that the htc hero is as good as/better than the iphone.. yes, i know technically the hero pisses all over the iphone, but then again technically the dreamcast was the best console of its generation and look how hard that failed.. i know people who have iphones and people who have heroes (or should that be heros?), and from what i can tell the iphone does far more than the hero, so i must be missing out on something..

for example, over xmas i was in the pub, someone whipped out their iphone to take a photo, and with the click of one button had that photo uploaded to their facebook.. it doesn't seem that easy on the hero.. and what's this i hear about people using iphones to scan products in the supermarket, and get an instant price comparison with other supermarkets? i'd love to get that on the hero.. even getting ringtones on the hero is a ballache! it doesn't seem to support bluetooth file transfers, so you have to dick about with a USB cable and mounting SD cards and various other shenanigans - and even then, once you get your mp3 onto the SD card, it nigh-on impossible to locate it on the bloody phone!

i am hoping that this apparent lack of functionality is because i am (or rather, the missus is) using the standard, OOTB ROM that t-mobile provide.. am i right in thinking that if i root her pride and joy (hurf durf ) and chuck a customised ROM on there, it will magically open up a world of hand-held joy?

what is the current ROM du jour? i remember gk mentioning modaco in the android thread.. had a bit of a read up on it, and it seems like it will do the business:

http://android.modaco.com/content/h...tom-rom-for-gsm-hero-now-with-online-kitchen/

is that everything i need to know? anything else i should bear in mind?

 

[shoes]

having never owned an iPhone I can't make a comparison however with regard to the comments you made...

for example, over xmas i was in the pub, someone whipped out their iphone to take a photo, and with the click of one button had that photo uploaded to their facebook.. it doesn't seem that easy on the hero..

Well apart from the fact that the cameras on every HTC phone are the equivalent of getting a four year old to draw the scene with a set of broken crayons...... its very easy via HTC Sense.

and what's this i hear about people using iphones to scan products in the supermarket, and get an instant price comparison with other supermarkets? i'd love to get that on the hero..

never tried it tbh, but yes this would be a seriously useful feature when it becomes available

even getting ringtones on the hero is a ballache! it doesn't seem to support bluetooth file transfers, so you have to dick about with a USB cable and mounting SD cards and various other shenanigans - and even then, once you get your mp3 onto the SD card, it nigh-on impossible to locate it on the bloody phone!

i've had no problem at all with bluetooth transfers Also sounds to me like you need Linda File Manager (from the market) - it's basically like using windows explorer

Mounting the SD card takes ooooooo 1.2877626 seconds not to mention using HTC sync (for me anyway) is far more useful than using the phone as a USB stick so that order of priority seems logical to me.

i am hoping that this apparent lack of functionality is because i am (or rather, the missus is) using the standard, OOTB ROM that t-mobile provide.. am i right in thinking that if i root her pride and joy (hurf durf ) and chuck a customised ROM on there, it will magically open up a world of hand-held joy?

Get the Orange standard ROM as you're not with Orange. I have tried the standard Vodaphone rom also and there are massives differences between the two, for example the orange one actually works lol. Not tried the T-Mobile rom but i would imagine it's not far from the Vodaphone one if you're having difficulties. Orange really don't tend to funk about too much with their phones so what HTC/Android wanted you to have, you have. I noticed on the vodaphone ROM that various widgets appeared to be missing, applications too, and the GPS didn't work.

Oh and avoid the 3 ROM as it appears you only get three home screens and a 24 hour battery life.....writes tek

 

[tek-monkey]

Download barcode scanner, free from the marketplace. Used it loads.

There was also a digital shoplifting app, where you scanned a barcode in HMV and it found the corresponding torrent on the pirate bay and FTPd it to your home machine and started downloading it. Was just proof of concept though, never used it myself and doubt its on the marketplace.

 

[tek-monkey]

Oh and avoid the 3 ROM as it appears you only get three home screens and a 24 hour battery life.....writes tek

Lol, that aint the rom mate. Or rather it is, but its not a network limitation. The motorola milestone has vanilla android 2, no sense UI addon or its other manufacturer equivalents. Standard android has 3 screens, thats how it was designed, the extra ones were added by HTC (or whoever). Strangely they didn't use the motoblur layer on the milestone, no idea why.

As for the battery, if I turn off wifi and bluetooth it lasts longer!

 

[db]

having never owned an iPhone I can't make a comparison however with regard to the comments you made...

neither have i, that's kind of how i came to my conclusion.. my only experience of iphones is watching my n00b mates use them to do basically anything they want, whereas me, a bonafide self-confessed geek, struggles to replicate this functionality on the girlfriend's hero using the stock software!

even getting ringtones on the hero is a ballache! it doesn't seem to support bluetooth file transfers, so you have to dick about with a USB cable and mounting SD cards and various other shenanigans - and even then, once you get your mp3 onto the SD card, it nigh-on impossible to locate it on the bloody phone!

i've had no problem at all with bluetooth transfers

really? i struggled for ages and couldn't get my laptop to recognise the device, so i started googling and the results i found said that bluetooth was deliberately crippled on the hero so you couldn't do file transfers! are you sure you haven't just opened up functionality by rooting it?

edit: quick google seems throw up a lot of results confirming that bluetooth file transfer is crippled..

Also sounds to me like you need Linda File Manager (from the market) - it's basically like using windows explorer

yeah, that sounds good.. and once you find files, can you do typical things with them? as in, if you navigate to an audio file, can you select it and choose "use as ringtone" or something? or if it's a bitmap, choose "view image", etc.?

Mounting the SD card takes ooooooo 1.2877626 seconds

yeah, but it just seems an unnecessary ballache, complicating what should be a simple process.. as a comparison, i was at my sister's recently and was getting some pictures off her canon camera onto her computer.. i noticed the cable was the same connector as my (shit) nokia n95 (i.e. mini-USB) so took it out of the camera and plugged it into my phone to see what would happen.. immediately, the phone showed up as an 8GB removeable drive! no mounting, no drivers, no dicking about - that's how it should work!

with the hero you have to plug USB in, dismount the card on the phone, mount it on the PC, etc.. it just seems like a ballache, and not particularly intuitive for anyone who isn't very computer savvy..

not to mention using HTC sync (for me anyway) is far more useful than using the phone as a USB stick so that order of priority seems logical to me.

really?? this has really got me confused then, because as far as i can tell HTC sync doesn't actually do anything except sync your phone with outlook contacts! i downloaded it, hoping it would let me transfer music and stuff, but there's none of that.. it's sole purpose seemed to be sync'ing contacts, that's it

Get the Orange standard ROM as you're not with Orange. I have tried the standard Vodaphone rom also and there are massives differences between the two, for example the orange one actually works lol. Not tried the T-Mobile rom but i would imagine it's not far from the Vodaphone one if you're having difficulties.

any reason why you recommend a standard ROM over a custom one like modaco? i thought the whole point of this exercise was to open the device up so it offers more functionality than an OOTB handset?

Orange really don't tend to funk about too much with their phones so what HTC/Android wanted you to have, you have.

really? god, in my day orange were the worst offenders for messing with firmware.. phone forums were awash with people trying to remove hideous colour palettes, stupid locked home screens, etc.. is that not the case any more?

 

[MyCult]

I have 16GB of memory in my Hero & most of her apps on the SD card. She runs beautifully. She runs like the wind.

I have a lot of music on there and the fantastic (free) MixZing music player.

She also has portable version of all my browsers, progs & Toolz so I have MySetup literally where ever I go.

Did I mention 16GB? She is wonderful.

This contributes nothing of value to the thread apart from me dribbling over MyAndriod.

FACE

 

[Jaffaholic]

Download barcode scanner, free from the marketplace. Used it loads.

There was also a digital shoplifting app, where you scanned a barcode in HMV and it found the corresponding torrent on the pirate bay and FTPd it to your home machine and started downloading it. Was just proof of concept though, never used it myself and doubt its on the marketplace.

This is the most amazing albeit controversial app i have ever read about, even more rad than the 'ifart' hehe

 

[tek-monkey]

Pretty simple in idea really, but its often a string of simple ideas that make the best innovations. The barcode gives you a numeric value that relates to that product. You google the code to get the name, hope you extract it correctly then search for that on TPB. If TPBs search decides it likes you it finds matching torrents, the app chooses which to take based on peers/seeds. It then FTPs the torrent file to your home PC (must have FTP open on your firewall and have a server running), drops it into the new torrrent folder and utorrent grabs it. In theory it could be there waiting when you get home

EDIT: Like this. Just searched for it, costs a quid.

 

[My Name is URL]

Not read the whole topic yet but dare say I will comment further in a second... but for the first post (for anyone not already rooted their Hero) I used this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bat86GeYTU

Ooopppsss, sorry wrong link I meant this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neE5zA687hE

 

[My Name is URL]

right, i'm fed up of hearing people claiming that the htc hero is as good as/better than the iphone.. yes, i know technically the hero pisses all over the iphone, but then again technically the dreamcast was the best console of its generation and look how hard that failed.. i know people who have iphones and people who have heroes (or should that be heros?), and from what i can tell the iphone does far more than the hero, so i must be missing out on something..

I wouldn't say the Hero "pisses all over the iPhone, but I would say it matches it OVERALL (i.e. some things better, some things worse).

HOWEVER I will say that out of the box the iPhone is better BUT if you put the effort in then you will get a lot more out of the Hero.

for example, over xmas i was in the pub, someone whipped out their iphone to take a photo, and with the click of one button had that photo uploaded to their facebook.. it doesn't seem that easy on the hero..

You need the facebook app from the Market.... Literally all I do is a) take a photo (which is then displayed on the screen) then press the "share" button and I can then upload to facebook or Flickr, send with gmail, send as a pic message, tweet it or send it to Picasa.

and what's this i hear about people using iphones to scan products in the supermarket, and get an instant price comparison with other supermarkets? i'd love to get that on the hero..

As mentioned, this is "barcode scanner" which is free from the market and has been for months (years?). This will also let you read QR codes which are FANTASTIC!!!

it doesn't seem to support bluetooth file transfers, so you have to dick about with a USB cable and mounting SD cards and various other shenanigans - and even then, once you get your mp3 onto the SD card, it nigh-on impossible to locate it on the bloody phone!

I just plug the cable in and mount the card to transfer files... not tried using BT. In your other post you mentioned this was difficult.. I always charge my phone from usb in work or at home anyway so its connected and takes a second to mount and unmount.

i am hoping that this apparent lack of functionality is because i am (or rather, the missus is) using the standard, OOTB ROM that t-mobile provide..

That I know of, all of the above is available to non-rooted phones, it just sounds like (no offence here) you haven't taken the time and / or done the research to do these things. Like I said, it does take a bit of work to get the most from it.

What rooting will allow you to do is wirelessly tether so you can use your phone as a mobile bb dongle.... will let you run "ShootMe" to get screen shots.... I forget what else now. My phone has been rooted so long I forget whats included and what isn't.

what is the current ROM du jour? i remember gk mentioning modaco in the android thread.. had a bit of a read up on it, and it seems like it will do the business:

http://android.modaco.com/content/h...tom-rom-for-gsm-hero-now-with-online-kitchen/

Definitely would recommend MCR 3.2.... people ITK rave about it.... until the MCR of 2.1 Android comes out, that is the rom of choice.

 

[My Name is URL]

Also in addition to to the above... check out my last post in this thread:

http://www.staffordforum.com/viewtopic.php?pid=68116#p68116

 

[db]

and what's this i hear about people using iphones to scan products in the supermarket, and get an instant price comparison with other supermarkets? i'd love to get that on the hero..

As mentioned, this is "barcode scanner" which is free from the market and has been for months (years?). This will also let you read QR codes which are FANTASTIC!!!

i'm aware of the barcode scanner, but does that do all the supermarket comparison bizniz i was on about? i thought some clever app would be required for that.. doesn't the barcode scanner just scan barcodes and show you the decoded data?

it doesn't seem to support bluetooth file transfers, so you have to dick about with a USB cable and mounting SD cards and various other shenanigans - and even then, once you get your mp3 onto the SD card, it nigh-on impossible to locate it on the bloody phone!

I just plug the cable in and mount the card to transfer files... not tried using BT. In your other post you mentioned this was difficult.. I always charge my phone from usb in work or at home anyway so its connected and takes a second to mount and unmount.

yeah, as i said before i realise it's not the most difficult thing in the world, but it's certainly more long-winded than simply plugging the cable in, as with other phones.. "mounting" and "unmounting" aren't terms that your average joe understands!

and i can't believe bluetooth is crippled.. file transfer via bluetooth has been standard on phones for about 5 years now!

i am hoping that this apparent lack of functionality is because i am (or rather, the missus is) using the standard, OOTB ROM that t-mobile provide..

That I know of, all of the above is available to non-rooted phones, it just sounds like (no offence here) you haven't taken the time and / or done the research to do these things. Like I said, it does take a bit of work to get the most from it.

none taken! tbh i was thinking of you () when i made this thread, all of this is exactly the sort of thing i was hoping for.. as you say, i haven't taken any time to research anything, but that was partly because i was disappointed at how simple the Hero is(n't).. as i said in my OP, i know luddites with iphones who seem to be able to do anything they can think of, despite not knowing their techno-arse from their cyber-elbow.. and despite all the hyperbole, the hero just doesn't seem that simple or intuitive.. one shouldn't have to "research" how to do something on a phone - it should Just Work™!

What rooting will allow you to do is wirelessly tether so you can use your phone as a mobile bb dongle.... will let you run "ShootMe" to get screen shots.... I forget what else now. My phone has been rooted so long I forget whats included and what isn't.

hmm, in which case, i'm wondering if i need to root it at all.. the missus is never gonna use it for tethering, and by the sounds of things she can install unsigned apps and stuff with the OOTB ROM so rooting probably won't do anything for her!

ta for the info, i'll have a play with the hero over the weekend i reckons..

 

[My Name is URL]

One other thing.... if you only want to get the odd mp3 or two on there... check out iMusic

The trouble is up for renewal on her moby contract at the minute and think I have managed to persuade her that the HTC Desire is the phone to have

 

[basil]

I've not a clue what this thread is all about although in a strange way i find it interesting, could the subject matter be explained in a one sentence idiots guide?........

 

[My Name is URL]

In one sentence - Modifying your (smart)phone to do things that you wouldn't normally be able to on it "out of the box"

 

[basil]

In one sentence - Modifying your (smart)phone to do things that you wouldn't normally be able to on it "out of the box"

Clear as mud.........

 

[Withnail]

Is it possible to purchase a 'techno-arse'? I rather like the sound of it. Not that bothered about the cyber-elbow, but then i'm not sure i'd be able to tell the difference.