howdy

[whitey10tc]

Greetings, earthlings.
Suppose posting here in intros first would've been most appropriate, but I was just too interested in the topic which drew me to this forum and jumped right in.
This isn't my first pass at getting into the software innards of a cell phone, I've been messing with this stuff since getting my oldest samsung phone on sprint, back in 2003.
My favorite accomplishment was helping some serious techs, much more skilled than I, figure out how to run linux on the palm centro. it ran, could use apps and play some games, but never did figure out enough of the proprietary internals of the phone to hook it to the network The whole reason I went trying to plunk linux on the beast in the first place was that verizon had intentionally put a software lock on the internal gps, and I was hoping to use linux to get around that. It would've worked, too, if anyone could've figured out the hardware registers which serviced the gps. oh, well.
Recently my woman convinced me to get a replacement for that centro (left on a windowsill with an open window in 2008, got rained on and messed up the directional hard keys so I couldn't play mame or any other games, which was mostly what I used the piece for.)
We have been using virgin mobile for this year, because they're so cheap, but I didn't realize what a tight grip the provider has on the phones. No giving out the MSL (SPC or whatever) anymore, claim they don't have access to it; yeah, right. No usb drivers for the data cables. No downloading except from them... well, you all know this anyway, eh?
So, after 3 weeks of my kyocera s1300 junx (I mean jax, I guess) not having incoming services except for working wap access and hunting numbers for direct access to tech support rather than non-english-speaking 'customer service' to try to avoid the eternal 'wait 24-72 hours', I agreed it was time to upgrade. Knowing about the locked-out access to vm handsets, I went researching for a decent model which'd work on their network which I could also install what I wanted on it.
Found info on HoFo which led me here, indicating that it was possible to install apps, ringers, etc., on the vm510 <rumor touch> and here I find the unlock procedure for the handset! Yay! Thanks, Crogon here, and Bruce at HoFo with the app install thread, and the others whose names I've forgotten with ringer install info!
So, at this point, I've gotten one for myself, had vm kill my old account with all its service issues and transfer my balance and plan, plus money for the net10 phone I had to refill just to talk to tech support, to the new phone with a new number. Works great. And I have access to most of the phone now. Love the working GPS, up-to-date java mipd2, resolution, etc. A great new toy! Too bad I can't run mame on it (yet, anyway ) but at least I have some games to carry around for when I'd otherwise be bored off my a**.
So, here I am!

Welcome to the forum

I noticed some people can post attachments. Couldn't find info on forum search about the requirements to be able to do that. Opened a filesharing account to share stuff with people here, but some of the stuff I want to post is so small that I don't want to bother with the filesharing site for those tiny bits.
Anyone care to clue me in on the requirements to be allowed to post attachments?
Thanks in advance.
Lotsa good info on this forum, I'm enjoying it.

For file attachments, they are limited for reason. If for instance someone attaches a copy of CDMA WS 3.6 that's cracked, CDMA Gurus is now the host of said file and legally responsible. So it was decided in Jan. 2010 when the forum started that it would not be allowed, this may be revisited in the future.
For Avatars this is allowed by user groups. When you hit a certain post count then Avatars, signatures, pictures, signature links, etc are allowed. This is a standard with many forums, it helps a few things, participation, cut's down on forum storage for those one time members that have a fancy Avatar and haven't been active for 10 months, but in general it gives a member something to look forward to. Sometime over the next few days we'll put a post up listing each usergroup/rank and the permissions each one allows.

[bigsupersquid]

... Sometime over the next few days we'll put a post up listing each usergroup/rank and the permissions each one allows.

good enough info for me for now. I look forward to having a specific target. also, some forums I've been on limit the 'fanciness' of avatars by limiting filesize or animation until users achieve an even higher post count or rep than is required for basic avatar capability.So I wasn't really sure what to expect. thanks for the response!