my first V3RE MP is ready...

[edminister]

to be criticized...
It is made from a T-Mobile V3RE (0c.f4/r3442a_g_0e.43.25r) and the SHX contains all CGs except the digital sign ones. There is a video for viewing as well as a few ringtones. Anyone care to test it? I guess this thread can be the "you still need to do this, and why the hell does it do this?" thread!

the MP:
http://www.4shared.com/file/77166912/72ba7d9/mindinabox.html

the skin for those less brave/more cautious: (some animations such as send and receive text are DRM dependent to look quite right, this will be resolved later)
http://www.4shared.com/file/77167275/7bfc1d78/mindina.html

Yay me! I am off to work now...

[Danation]

Alright, I'll test it out when I get a minute.

Question: Is it locked or unlocked? Doesn't really matter to me, 'cause I'm locked to T-Mobile anyway. But it will be useful for others to know.

[edminister]

I do not have an unlocked v3re, from what I understand I need to call t mobile and tell them I am going to europe for a month or two

[Danation]

Yep, that's right. lol. Sorry, still haven't had a chance to try it yet, but when I get a second, I will.

__________________________________________________ _____________________________

Hey, sorry, I should have mentioned. You need to add the Digital Sign CG's for a v3re MP.

Without them, the MP will brick phones (it bricked my phone and modnmoto's phone. But we flashed our backups just fine.)

So add the CGs and we'll give it another try.

[modnmotos]

yeah it looked cool for the half a second i saw the bootscreen untill the screen of death popped up. its possible to split mp with shxcodec and add those cg's however nubys may not know how and experienced modders (like myself) might be to lazy to do that, lika Danation said just add them so we can do a clean flash. Thanks.

[Danation]

My guess is that the CGs will have to be his... but either way.... post the MP with the CGs.

[modnmotos]

Why do u say that? Why wouldnt cg's from ours work? Hummmm sumthin to try! IN FACT IM TRY N IT NOW. BRING ON THE BRICK (lol) I AINT NEVA SKERD! (lol) That is untill the backup phones are sold. lol

[Danation]

Well, flashing it without the CGs shouldn't have affected our own, that's what I'm saying.

When you flash a DRM or a flex it doesn't mess up the other CGs. I doubt it would with this. But definitely give it a try. If I'm wrong, I want to know about it.


__________________________________________________ ________________________________

Actually, I was wrong, but for a different reason. Dumba was reminding me that the Digital Sign CGs are necessary for using the firmware CG: CG1. You can't use one without the other.

Stick 'em back in and we'll try the MP.

[Dumba]

Or try it without cg1, just flash cg2, cg4 and cg15. :)

EDIT: I evidently forgot all about the cg8, sorry. That should be included too.

[modnmotos]

Worked like a charm. Thanks buddy for the suggestion.

edminister- I'm not a big fan of mp's but with this being said, the mp is really nice, you did a very good job. I have'nt been through the whole mp yet, so in a day or two I'll let you know there is anything that needs tweeking.

I used SBF-Recalc to split edministers mp. Then used FB3 to read cg2,4,8,15 from phone. Then replaced the current cg's on the phone with the ones from edminister's mp and reflashed.

[Danation]

Modnmotos already had it split, but you can just download it, open it in F&B and unselect everything but CG2 CG4 CG8 and CG15 and flash it.

[edminister]

OMG, I am sorry all, was trying to keep filesize down to a minimum but evidently I need to add everything. OK, I am working up a new one (also without the phone number I neglected to pull from it, poor guy's name is truelock but I typed it in as trucklick....

[Danation]

lol. No worries. Post up, and I'll try it. (I'm too lazy to try it the other way, lol.)

[modnmotos]

Or just tell people to only flash cg 2,4,8,15 that works!

some feed back for you edminister:
in the main menu you have a menu item called 'get more' after going into this menu item all the icons are missing. is this suposed to be like this? also a function you might want to think about adding is 'java app loader' and including the funlights.pat file in the audio folder. it looked like ringlights were enabled but there was no patterns to select from. other than that mp looked ok. hope this helps

[edminister]

OK, font width is fixed, external message DRM graphics added, 46.gif (mainscreen) "fixed", color updates for easier viewing, and a slew of wallpapers added. http://www.4shared.com/file/77374525/61d9d8ed/v3remindinabox.html

I had a lot more in my post but I accidentally deleted it, thanks for the compliments so far, it makes me happy. The girlfriend wants to kill me I am so hyper at this point.

[Danation]

K, I'm gonna flash it and test it out. I'll let you know what I think.

__________________________________________________ ________

Alright, I successfully flashed it with no problems. Here are my impressions.


Aesthetics

Very nice skinning and appearance. I think the atmosphere of th MP is what you were aiming for and I'm impressed with the job you did.

I think a couple of DRM icons still need to be changed to fit your MP (Call Volume and New Message are what I noticed so far.) Wallpapers look good, cl.gif looks good. Menus and menu items looks great. Text message animations look great. Bootscreen and startup and shutdown animations look great. I like the analog clock. The text is fairly dark color, I'd lighten it up a little for easier viewing. Overall, I give you an A on aesthetics. I'll change it to A+ when you finish the DRM stuff and if you tweak the color. Very nice job.

Features
Looks like you haven't added a ton of features yet. I suggest doing the seem edit that enables the menu item for storing texts to phone (Seem 0032_0001 offset 9A, check bit 1.) I also noticed that the default primary and secondary entry setup for SMS is TAP. I suggest making one of them iTAP. I'd also activate the Java App loader and add some games in. Lastly I'd get your subsidy code and unlock the phone when you get a sec. That's all I've noticed so far...

I'm glad you're excited, you've put in a lot of good work and done a good job. I look forward to further improvements!

[Dumba]

Just to avoid warez. Any java you might add, must be free stuff or demo stuff. games and other apps, or music in full lenght are usually copyrighted or for sale by someone. That would be a shame to add those and then I have to take it out again.
So most MP's here come usually without games, who wants any, and was able to flash any MP, will also know how, and where, he can find them.

[Clarkey]

Any screenshots?

[Danation]

I think the mobiles24 games are free full games. They have a "free" section and a "buy" section. If the free section is still warez, though, please let me know.

[modnmotos]

Thanks Danation and to go in to depth a little more with the question:
Dumba, Clarkey or anyone else- I have downloaded games and dont want to pirate anything, or do anything illegal so how do I or anyone else know if its warez or not? I asumed it was ok and not illegal because the site had a 'pay' or 'premium' section and the free section(which is where I d/l from). Do I need to contact the website? What about other finds such as files on rapidshare or limewire or anywhere else?(where you cant contact anyone) Being a musician the pirating issue is important to me, regardless if its music or games or software. Any suggestions or help is great!

btw Clarkey DRUMMERS ROCK! lol
:rockon:

[modnmotos]

Here you go Clarkey just for you buddy. Screenshots of the mp.

[edminister]

Wow, I go away for a day... Those screenies look nice! I went looking for trouble I guess and have crashed my phone about a dozen times fooling with funlights. I have had every issue posted in the v3re forums from phone reboot on call to black screen startups.

I am putting that project on hold for a moment and am looking into menu editing next. Unfortunately it seems 4x4 menus are popular lord only knows why... I only use my phone as a phone and text device for the most part. If I used my phone to surf, play mp3s, xfer data as a flash drive blah blah I think I would be using something other than a Razr, it really doesn't have the capacity. My main concern with menu editing is getting the help, chat, get more, and other useless crap put somewhere else.

I am thinking my next logical step is really sifting through the drm icons and getting those looking a little more cohesive and then focusing on a few more skins that can use the drm icons as effectively as the first one while showcasing some of the other characters from the mind.in.a.box world. Night (the girl on the main wallpaper seems to dominate the design especially as her legs are part of the lower buttons and it makes flopping from one wallpaper to another awkward. Also it doesn't seem to entirely fit with Black narrating most of the sounds that he shows up so infrequently through the theme of the phone. (in text messages mainly but the video is nice I think) I think he needs a basic "black' skin to slap on as well. I also want to add more "dreamweb" stuff to the phone as it plays such a small part as well. (shutdown animation) Sorry, I am up late (early) and rambling, I forget most if not all of you have any idea what I am referring to.

Here is a short and semi-accurate description of what mind.in.a.box is from their north american distributor that might make more sense.

Mind.In.A.Box is a metaphor for everything that prevents our minds from truly being free. His conceptual debut, Lost Alone, is a collection of stories where the common theme is the fundamental aloneness of human beings, which most of us try to overcome with the help of like-minded individuals. Finding and staying close to these people is one of the major goals in life, but the protagonists of the Lost Alone stories have a difficult time coping with their aloneness and finding the ones they are looking for. They find themselves caught in a world of increasing selfishness. Some of them feel alone because they have recently been left by a loved one, others are on their own simply because of their egotistical behavior and inability to give up unconditional control in order to be able to share their life with others. The protagonists are at different stages in their search, some of them near despair, some of them quite confident that they will succeed, some not even aware of their quest. All songs have multiple interpretations, partly because this of course cannot be avoided, especially when there isn't enough time to spell out everything in detail, but also because they are intended as such and listeners should always be allowed to build up their own personal image of the world or story that is described. http://www.metropolis-records.com/artists/?artist=mindiab

While not entirely accurate it sorta explains why I wanted to use it as the basis for my phone, a device that certainly gives me freedom but prevents it just as easily; a device that makes one feel connected with others and at the same time can give one an acute sense of loneliness as well. It's just a cheap piece of circuitry and engineering but the range of emotions caused by it's role as messenger makes it a dubious necessity in life. (I detest phones but I have to have one so it better be an extension of me and not some foreign device that seems intentionally designed for someone else!)

Anyways, thanks again to everyone who is taking a look at this MP. I know how hard it is to hop out of your own phone layout and into something different. You sorta get the feeling you picked up somebody else' phone or something every time you look at it and what is normally instinct or response becomes tedium all over again.

[Danation]

Mostly, it's the 3X4 menus that get the most action on RAZRs, but I also don't see the point...

It's been a while since I messed with menu editing, but I believe I used MMA Advanced editor.


Modnmotos wrote a good guide on funlights: http://www.modmymoto.com/wiki/index.php/Razr_v3re_How_to_enable_funlights


Interesting philosophy on phones ;)

[edminister]

For the record, I hate funlights and have yet to get them to work.

[Danation]

Hm.... so you followed Modnmotos guide, right? Still didn't work? Can you tell us what the "symptoms" are?

[modnmotos]

Could be that you got a bad pat file so here is a good one go here (webpages.charter.net/brianwebpage/) to get it.

[pwyll]

I think the mobiles24 games are free full games. They have a "free" section and a "buy" section. If the free section is still warez, though, please let me know.

Sometimes the only way to find out stuff like that is to go to the source--the author/publisher of the game. Piracy is so rampant in some areas (and non-protected commercial software is one of them) that it can be quite easy for "technically" pirated software to show up on legitimate sites. This is compounded by many companies' take on shareware--releasing older versions at no cost as demos to sell the most recent version. This can be confusing to someone who sees two or three versions of a program at a site, notices he or she has a newer version and (assuming it must be free since all the other ones are) uploads it with the intention of being helpful.

I've spent about a half-hour at Mobile24 so I really know nothing about the site's philosophy--but I was surprised at many of the games available in their "free" section. On the other hand, I didn't do any research and so I don't know that some of the games aren't released free to promote their console-based brethren or if some of the companies decided the hassle was more than the benefit and simply released the games in order to avoid support issues with those who'd bought them and to avoid the legal hassles of trying to combat piracy on products they no longer offered...

I would think, though, that as a rule if a game or application is in their free section for a month or so it's probably not warez as that would give time for the publisher to discover the infringement, send a C&D and Mobile24 to remove (or move) the offending file... [whoops! see section "1)" of edit below]


Scott


Edit: Just stopped by the site, and I have to note here that there's no real way to determine whether there's a way to be reasonably assured that *any* file on the site is not pirated. Software is protected by copyright, and since the U.S. (finally) joined the Berne Convention in the 90's, that copyright is automatic in *most* of the "Western World" (and Japan). However, there are still a lot of countries that do not recognize Berne Convention copyrights and a few countries that do not recognize the concept of "copyright" at all. Since there is no location information anywhere on their site, I checked out the ToS (which is a legal contract when you are required to agree to it to register) and on it's face it appears to be a U.S. site with it's age restriction of 13+, requiring parental consent for 13 - 16 year olds, and it's references to the DMCA and the Data Protection Act of 1998 (the latter in the Privacy Statement). However, trying to find specific details reveals a lot:

1) The requirements of the DMCA for a C&D are listed and are supposed to be provided to "our Copyright Agent with the following information in writing" even though there is no address listed anywhere on the site and there is no contact information of any kind for a "Copyright Agent"--and thus no way to actually request that illegal material be removed.

2) " BY USING AND/OR VISITING Mobiles24, ... YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY BOTH THIS TERMS OF USE AGREEMENT and the MOBILES24 PRIVACY POLICY (http://www.mobiles24.com/privacy) WHICH IS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE." This implies it is a legal contract of some kind, but one caveat of written contracts is that they *must* list the jurisdiction under which they are to be interpreted/contested as contract law varies from state to state in the U.S. and varies greatly from country to country. This is a standard boiler-plate TOS for the United States, but "THE FOREGOING LIMITATION OF LIABILITY SHALL APPLY TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW IN THE APPLICABLE JURISDICTION..." renders it legally unenforceable anywhere in the U.S. making it basically pointless. It does list their policies about how you can get kicked off, but there's no reason to expect that anything they list as *their*"responsibilities will be enforced--including the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

They may be a legitimate U.S. site that simply grabbed a boiler-plate document and didn't sufficiently adapt it, or they may be a legitimate "rest of the world" site that intends to abide by the more-stringent-than-most U.S. internet policy, or they may be a "we don't care if it's warez or not" site that wants to present the atmosphere of a legitimate site. A cursory look via SamSpade shows the domain registered through GoDaddy and hosted by fastdomains.co.uk on IC2ITSOLUTIONS.COM servers. I don't really have the time or interest to do a thorough investigation.

Summary: they *look* legitimate, but offer no assurance of that on their site and are a bit dodgy with their ToS and Privacy Statement.

[Danation]

Yeah, definitely good points. Probably the safest thing to do for MPs is as Dumba said: leave java out so that there's no risk of warez.

[modnmotos]

And my understanding is as long as we are'nt linking to the site an explaination about the site is ok. My main goal is the protection of m3 and secondary goal would be to make sure protected content is not pirated, however I am only one person so how much can I really do? Other than not promote sites that host warez. Thanks pwyll.