Turns out what I was thinking right because the more I research the more I started to understand what was going on. Since the Motorola XOOM‘s bootloader’s unlockable is where I start learning more (I have a 3G XOOM, still waiting on the 4G upgrade to come out). And I recently upgraded my X to the HTC Thunderbolt and learned that there bootloader is also unlock (by unlocking it through HBOOT flash).

So here I’ll put down what I’ve learned so far.

What Exactly Is A Bootloader?

A bootloader is a piece of code that runs at the low level. You can think of it as the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) of a computer. It’s purpose is to execute the kernel and OS for actual boot. The bootloader also checks the signature to make sure it’s an official ROM provided by the manufacture assuming that the bootloader is still locked. With an unlocked bootloader you can flash customized ROMs without having to worry about signature checks. This is why having an unlocked bootloader is important.

Because of the fact that Motorola started locking down there bootloader without the option of unlocking it is such a big deal to the modding community. But because of the modding community, they have found a way around it. Just because the bootloader’s locked doesn’t mean you can’t get root access.

What Exactly Is Root?

Root is a user account that has full access and permission to all files and folders of an OS. This means you can do pretty much whatever you want to the OS (in this case the Android OS). I’ve used root access to copy my notification tones and ring tones directly to the phone instead of on the memory card (for a good reason).

Usually to root an Android device you will need to find an exploit and once you exploit it you can then gain perm. root access. This is how it was done with the Droid X in Android 2.1 there was an exploit where if you toggle on/off either the WiFi or Bluetooth after running one command you’d be able to gain temp root access so you can copy all the files you need for perm root. Because of the fact that the Droid X’s bootloader isn’t unlockable we had to make due with that.

With the XOOM, since the bootloader’s unlockable, once you unlock the bootloader all you had to do was flash a new system image which already included root access.

For the HTC Thunderbolt, you had to gain temp root to downgrade, once downgraded you can then flash a new image that will turn S-ON to S-OFF (S meaning Secure, meaning the bootloader is either checking signatures or not) before upgrading back up with perm root.

So, has you can see, the ways of rooting an Android device varies. But as long as the bootloader’s unlocked, you can get root pretty easy and flash custom kernels and ROMs. Because the Droid X and all newer Motorola phone’s bootloader will never be unlockable, you won’t be able to load true custom ROMs but can make due because of the modding community.

What Exactly Is A ROM?

A ROM, in Android’s case, is the actual system. It’s pretty much the changes to the /system directory customized to either be less bloated or to be speed up the performance. This will sometimes includes changes to kernel itself but you won’t be able to change the kernel if the bootloader is locked and cannot be unlocked. Changes to the kernel sometimes makes improvements of the overall stability and/or performance as well.

Think of the ROM as a different flavor of an Linux OS (assuming you know something of the Linux OS, even if you’ve just heard of Red Hat and Mandrake) is the easiest way to explain I can think of.

And The Recovery?

The recovery (located on the recovery partition) is used for trying to recovery your phone. Basic recovery is usually a way for formatting the phone and allows for software updates. On a rooted/unlocked bootloader device, you can flash a custom recovery (or in terms of the Motorola Droid X, Droid X2, Droid 2, etc, using a bootstrap to hijack the recovery call) for more options such as backing up the whole phone (current ROM), flashing customized flashable zip files (such as adding themes or different ROM), etc.

Questions To You

Weren’t you using a Blackberry before?

Yes, I was, and loved it, but then after I gotten used to my Droid X and saw what I can do, I just tossed my Blackberry to my mom. My mom loves my old Blackberry so it worked out for her.

But You only had your X for less then a year? What gives?

Multiple co-workers and friends gotten it, the more I played with it, the more I wanted it, called Verizon, and they gave me a really good deal for it with the extended battery. Can turn down an awesome offer.

You said you have a XOOM? Why you didn’t say anything?

I was typing up a post about it on the XOOM itself but became too lazy. I will say this, though. Android 3.1 (Honeycomb) is fucken awesome!

How you liking the Thunderbolt?

The Thunderbolt is awesome, even more so now that I don’t have to experiences the random reboots (that started happening yesterday, June 12th) because of the new radio I’ve flashed and am using Flyweight ROM.

Anyways, can’t really think of much more to say but if you have any questions let me know in a comment or email.

So who is this feminist group that calls themselves Equality Now?  Well… It’s a group of nothing but washed up hags who wants to take away our freedom of speech.  So what does that mean?  It means they want censorship over EVERYTHING that might be discriminated towards women and girls in any way, shape, or form.  Even if it’s a news paper article about some girl who got raped last night and they caught the guy and they cut off his dick as punishment, they want that censored.  What’s worse is that they’re “armed” with what they call CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women).  Don’t know what that means? Re-read this paragraph again.

So this so call group is setting up some sort of temporary office in Japan to try to take away their free speech over there like they do to us Americans.  It’s honestly no wonder why the world is so fucked up to begin with.  With so many people who lives inside of a bubble and is too ashamed to show their body to the opposite sex.  In fact, it’s a sin to even talk about sex (according to that so called group).

So what does this all mean?  It means they’re going straight to the heart of a country that given us otakus the light of licensed anime in the US.  If it wasn’t for the pioneers of the fan subbing community back in the good old days when it’s a sin to even mention anime that anime wouldn’t be as popular as it is now.  It was because those companies saw that there is, in fact, a market out in the good old USA for anime.  Which is also another reason why we have some good eroge games and soon some really great eroge games (since Nitroplus has teamed up with JAST).  And this so called censorship group pretty much wants to put an lid on it.

This means what the pioneers and the current otakus has worked so hard for is being cocked blocked by a bunch of feminist who claims that it’s poison to the sociality?  What’s poison to sociality is the fact that we even have censorship to begin with.  I mean, come on?  Who is it really protecting?  I mean, they show some guy, his wife, and his children getting killed on CNN for crying out loud.  The censorship is a joke.  What makes it alright to show such stuff on CNN while it’s not alright to have it in my anime or manga?  I mean, come on, another prim example would be the crappy movie, The Last House on the Left, where it clearly showed an underage girl getting raped.  Why isn’t that so called Equality Now isn’t saying anything to the film makers of that movie?  Why aren’t they saying anything to CNN about showing clips of a women his her daughters getting there head cut cleanly off?  Or those tons of other media?  Is it because those who are producing those have more money?

If that’s the case, then it makes sense why they’re going after my hentai, anime, manga, and video games since they’re pretty high on the totem pole for that so called group to hit.

What do I think?  I think censoring everything and anything is a bad ideal to begin with because if we enact censorship then sense of pleasure will never end which will turn into violate people and actually ease our pleasure onto other people.  At least with other forms of media it ease our pleasure for whatever we’re in the mood for.  In a mood for killing a hooker?  Pop in that GTA IV game, drive up to a hooker, take her to a dark alley, once she’s done run her over and get your cash back and there you go, that ease my pleasure of wanting to kill some ho.  In the mood of slicing some heads off?  Pop in that game of Gears of War and start slicing and dicing, there my thirst for blood has been taken away.

Point being, censorship is bad when it’s going this far.

Articles in question that got me to write this post:
Equality Now: "We Should Censor Other Countries"
Equality Now: "Unprecedented" Criticism Over Eroge Ban
Equality Now Demands UN Hentai Ban
UN Demands Hentai Ban

Alright, so this was the 3rd time someone decided to "vandalized" my truck, this was the second time they egged it, one time they threw water balloons at it but I don’t care about water balloons.

Anyway, now I’m pissed off and going to start looking for a good security camera to setup so I can catch those fuckers and put them to justices.  I mean, come on, it’s destruction of private property, and last time I checked that’s against the law.

Just you wait and see, punks, just you want and see, you’ll have a day in court that’s for sure.

In order for you to understand this entry, you first need to know what DRM is and what it does, and for that reason I’ll explain what is it and what it does first.

DRM (Digital Rights Management) was designed to preserves the rights of a software, hardware, or file of the original creator.  What this means is that if you download a music file, for an example, the creator (in this case, the record company who signed up the music artist) of the file still holds the rights.  But this is just common sense, right?  Well, DRM steps it up by placing limitation on how you can use that music file.  For a more better example, we take take a look at WMA (Windows Media Audio) files as if you download any purchased songs from WMP it’ll be in that form.  Depending on where you download from, though, will have a different set of restrictions.  One song I bought would only allow me to burn it to a music or mp3 CD a total of 3 times but allows me to copy it back and forth as many times as I want to a MP3 player, but that’s only after the 2 transfer (if I never had to format my computer then I can burn the file as many times that I want).

What makes DRM worst is because it’s govern by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which was passed and signed into law October 28th, 1998.  The reason why I believe the DMCA is a downfall failure is because the writing for it is so vague that it makes it sound like just downloading a MP3 that an artist released on his web site for there fans to download for free could face fines and even jail time.  It just adds to the problem and doesn’t help solve the problem.

What’s the problem?  It’s something that everyone has done one time or another (unless you’re one of those kind of of person who doesn’t know what’s going on in the world of the Internet), pirated software or music.  This pretty much leads up to the age of Napster, where you could download music from anywhere until one band (not going to name who because I’m too lazy to try to remember who it was or how to spell it) was crying about it (if I’m not mistaken, there record sales actually jumped because more people found out about there music through Napster, but would they say anything about it?  Nope) and sued the creator(s) of Napster.

Years later and here we are.  But that’s beside the point, we’re not here to talk about Napster, we’re here to talk about DRM and the game Spore.

So what does DRM has to do with Spore?  Everything.  They locked it down so much that you can only install the game and activated a total of 3 times before you have to call EA to try to get another activation in.  To top it all off, if you have multiple people in your house hold who wants to play the game as well, you would need to buy another copy of the game since they don’t allow multiple user accounts in this game.  But Sims 2 allowed you to do it? And that’s a fact (I have that game) but EA doesn’t like you, they just like your money.

So why is EA doing this?  To prevent privacy, I guess, but here’s the kicker, someone actually pirated and released the game a few days before the official released!  What this means is that those who illegally downloaded the game can reinstall it as many times as they want without having to worry about activating the software while those who legally bought the game is limited to how many times they can install and activated the game before it locks down and you have to make a phone call.  Where the fairness?

Don’t get me wrong, I like Joomla but I had nothing but problems with it.  I tried upgrading to the latest version of it’s software and it broke a lot of plug ins that I use so I downgraded it which is where I started having all the problems with script kiddies getting in and changing the front page around.

If they really were “hackers” like they claim to be then they would of also changed one of my other site’s front page which they did not because they weren’t hackers at all, those posers.

But since I was getting kinda annoyed with them keep fucking around with the front page I decided to finally switch it over to this software, even though it’s not yet ready to be aired but thought it’s better now or have people bitching at me because of my site “supporting bad guys sticking bombs up there asses.”

About 2 weeks back, just after I got out of VoIP training (yep, I now take VoIP call issues) my sister and her boyfriend started arguing.  What are they’re arguing about?  Something about my sister talking to one of her ex’s from way back in the day when we were still living in California (and mind you, almost all the guys my sister dated back then were losers that everyone in the family didn’t liked and there relationship never lasted, the longest I can remember is 2 months).  So, anyways, my sister and her ex saw each other by pure chance when she went down there for a concert and they just talked a bit after that.  Are they still talking now?  More likely not. Why?  Because my sister’s current boyfriend is getting all butt hurt about her talking to other guys.

I honestly don’t see the reason why my sister’s current boyfriend (which I believe she broke up with him now) would be jealous over some dude she dated back then and still lives in California, they’ve (my sister and her current boyfriend) been going out for over 2 years, which is the longest relationship my sister has ever been in with a guy.  I mean, she was really serious about him and everyone in the family liked him.  And I mean everyone, including the dogs and cats.

But, anyways, because they started arguing right when I got out of training, it was stressing me out, then I heard there was some drama going on in the forums which caused my stress level to go even higher, to the point where I just felt like locking myself in my room with tons of porn and calling in from work, but that’s besides the point.  After over hearing this big huge argument I had the urge to hurt someone and that someone was no other then her boyfriend since that’s the source of the issue, him being jealous and all.

Anyways, moving onto today, there was another big argument that I just couldn’t stand listening any longer and text her boyfriend asking him if he trust her or not.  Of course I gotten no responds and my sister yelled at me for looking after her, gez.  In the end, my sister’s downstairs sleeping with mom while dad is sleeping on the couch and everyone is caught up in this drama that had boiled down to.

So what do I think of all this?  Why is her boyfriend being a jealous bitch? Well… there’s a few things I can think of.  First, my sister was nuts over him (like I said before), so nuts that she’s actually teasing him about popping the question.  To top it all off, his sister was about to get married in the Ukraine and my sister was really looking forward going over there.  So if you put 2 and 2 together, you can see why it’s the perfect time for him to be a complete ass and getting my sister going to the point that she dumped his ass.  If you don’t see where I’m going with this, let me put it in simple terms for you.  He wanted her to dump him so he won’t feel guilty about it on top of saving himself money from having to buy an extra plane ticket for my sister or worry about saving up to get an apartment with her.  But the main reason that I’m thinking is the reason is more likely because he got cold feet and too much of a pussy to break it off himself, but that’s just me.

Anyways, it’s too late at night and I need to get some sleep because I got work in the morning.