I’ve been told that since a young age I’ve always been taking stuff apart, tho I don’t I think I ever put anything back together!!!

I’ve found this fascination with taking stuff apart has creeped over to my techy side too, not so much taking stuff apart but re flashing software/firmware on devices.

A good example of this is my shiny XDA Stellar from O2 (HTC Kaiser in its original form). HTC manufacture this device and create their own soft/firmware and then release the devices to the telephone companies. It’s at this point the telephone operators perform the equivalent of computer rape on the devices and load heavily customised software often restricting functionality and the option of updates. As new software is released from HTC it is only when O2 customised the updated software would a user be able to upgrade, this happens about once a blue moon!

There is a way a way to combat this and return the device to the original vendor set-up. If you have a HTC device a good source of information is the XDA Developers forum, Linky! The forum contains a wealth of information and allows the user to flash their device to the vendors original software or a cooked ROM. The cooked ROMs are modified versions of the original software that include applications and customisations.

I was having a total pain trying to pair my phone with my laptop over blue tooth or even send files from my old N95 or laptop to the XDA. After 1223 soft resets and 124 hard resets I decided the O2 soft/firmware was at fault!! Sure enough when I loaded the original, non operator tampered software the bluetooth worked a treat!

Of course moving your device away from the operator software and flashing it is a HUGE void of your warranty so if your going to do it you wont be able to have your phone repaired under warranty and you do run the risk of bricking your device (so don’t say I didn’t warn you!)

Nino