Cherry Picking Your Setup (ROMS and Kernels)

      This happens at least once a day, there is that one person who asks "What is the best custom ROM/Kernel?". Most likely another person says a ROM and says why they feel others are inferior to it. While other ROMs may be in its Nightly phase, do not let that discourage you from trying out that ROM. Some ROMs are in their Stable forms and still operate like a Nightly. That is not bad! For example, for the HTC One X, most AOSP ROMs are based or use something from CyanogenMod to make the ROM even boot. But my point is, every ROM is different. Every kernel is different! Some ROMs use Linaro Toolchains, some are based on a stock kernel with memory enhancements. Plus, everyone has their own particular setup that they run that they like! I use M-Kernel on Carbon ROM with all F2FS on my Nexus 7. Plus, I am at a -125 MV undervolt, will everyone like that setup? No, some over clock their devices and some under clock their devices. So it is up to you to find your perfect ROM/Kernel setup.
  
       So I will help you find your perfect setup. First things first, do you want to be on KitKat or Jellybean? The reason I say those two is because the best compatibility between modern applications comes to those two Android versions. So you chose KitKat, remember most KitKat ROMs are in a nightly phase and may stop working or have some features that do not work at all, so if you need features such as Bluetooth or Camera, remember bugs can come! Remember to download the latest release your ROM developer has, so if it is release 4.4.4 on July 28 2014, download that version. Now you have a ROM, find a custom kernel that your device will support. Some kernels do not allow overclocking and if you are just finding your setup, do not overclock your device, yet! You are just finding what you will like! Now download the Google Apps package for your ROM. If your ROM is based on 4.4.4 download the Google Apps for 4.4.4 and if otherwise, download the Google Apps for that Android version. The latest as of this writing on 7/29/30 is 5.0.89 for Google Play Services. Now you must flash that ROM and kernel. I usually flash my ROM and Kernel first to enter information such as APN info and disable vibration or other unwanted features and then reboot to flash Google Apps. Tinker around with your setup to see if you like it or not and if you do not, then try another ROM and repeat. Comment or find me on Google+ for any questions.

Why I support BYOD

         After moving from Washington DC to Columbus Ohio, I have noticed quite a few differences in how ISPs treat their customers. In Columbus, for high speed Internet, you primarily have two choices. One being WOW! and the other being TWC. Most people don't switch Internet service providers this fast nor do they always find some huge flaw in the service being provided. So in my almost 50 days of living in Columbus, I'm going to be telling you how I've ended up on TWC from WOW! and how problems like these can be solved by allowing customers to bring their own device!

          1. WOW! An Internet service provider that my family has used for quite a while before we moved. Back then, we used an Ethernet connection for two desktop PCs and the service was flawless. Fast forward 5 years and you have WOW! automatically giving customers a wireless router built in to their modem. One thing that I will say before I continue, is that I haven't had service related issues prior to switching to our own router. Not only was our internet traffic being throttled, but their own router actually prevented devices from being able to connect! Plus, probably the worst or most annoying thing about the service was the slow downs when connecting another WiFi device to the router. The most annoying time when this happened was when my Nexus 7 was downloading the latest nightly to Carbon ROM with F2FS (Highly recommended for 2012 Nexus 7 users) at 2.1 Mb/s, then I connected my One X to the router (No Internet traffic on the One X) and the download speed slowed down to about 60 kB/s. That's a speed decrease that anyone will notice, technology savvy or not. So the wireless was disabled by calling WOW! and we plugged in our own wireless router, speed decreases rarely existed but have shown us that their service was part of the problem.   

            2. TWC or Time Warner Cable, an ISP that probably most of America is familiar with. Their service so far is very reliable, however, when you plugin your our wireless router, your speeds maybe capped at 10 Mbps. No kidding. They give their customers a wireless router built into the modem, and the router completely blows chunks. If you try to connect to the router, it does not give the device internet access. At all! Plus, in order to disable it, you must call TWC for the user name and password. But back on the 10 Mbps cap I've noticed. My mother pays good money for their service, and it should just be provided without any restrictions on what router we use to provide Internet from the modem. But if you plug in a router into the modem that has a built in router, your speeds maybe capped at 10 Mbps. But this wasn't the case when the service was first installed, my first speed test gave the promised 50 Mbps, but has the days continued of using TWC's modem and router and having that plugged into our router, the speeds reached the 10 Mbps came that the modem had in place. But the way how I learned this cap existed was reading the modem's manual and seeing how our router was only receiving 10 Mbps of Internet. Now let's do some math here, 10 Mbps of 50 Mbps is 1/5 of the promised speed. And 1/5 of the $65 my mother pays is $12. But, no, she pays for 50 Mbps, it should be 50 Mbps regardless of what router we use.

Read this before you flash that! (Samsung)

           Samsung devices, the ones that shine out of the box. The ones that just have this solid (Not Premium there is a difference) feeling to them. The ones that have these software features on them that seem cool, but you rarely use them. Or the ones with Samsung's own CPU inside called "Exynos" (The one without LTE or DC-HSPA). So before you are looking at a shiny paperweight, I will tell you how you can prevent your device from being a paperweight.
  
            1. So you are looking at your internal storage and you have either a lot or only a few megabytes. So you decide what to backup in TWRP or CWM recovery and you decide to deselect the box marked "EFS" and just backup "system" and "data". With other devices, you can just backup /system and /data, and with others you must backup /boot if you change kernels or Android versions. But backing up that <20 MB partition can actually save you from buying another device. This partition contains very unique information about your device, like carrier unlock code and IMEI. In some instances a lost of /efs can actually cause the power menu to be obsolete.

             2. Install Odin or Heimdall on a computer with the drivers. Sure you just rooted your device without a computer, and the first thing you should be doing is making a full Nandroid backup with all of the partitions checked except /cache. You always want to make sure you have the firmware your device came on when you rooted it on your PC.  So if you have a Galaxy S4 on 4.3, then download the S4 firmware for your version of the S4.

               3. Know which version of device you have. No, I'm not saying give someone your IMEI to find your device version, but look at what carrier your device came from. Look at what CPU it has. For example, you may say you have the Snapdragon S2 from AT&T. Well, which one? If your device is the i9300 you should only download firmwares for the i9300, nothing else. Same thing applies to every other device. Only download and flash firmware for your specific device.