Help Military Overseas Deployment Planning for Prevail

[nmd243]

Hi, I'm been reading/learning/bricking/unbricking my phone for a few months. Thank you to everyone, there's so many to name... Hjork, Shabby.. many others. Many thanks to Caeadas who made sense of the posts and streamilined them into a guide....

I'm deploying to an overseas location where I will have access to a wireless network, but not cell service. I and my boys both have Prevails. I just followed Caeadas guide up for my sons' phone until CTMod, so it's got a partitioned SD disk, CWM. I bricked the phone trying to put CTMod 2.5 on, and am in CWM trying to get CTMod off. Which mod should I try next?

My boys are 9 & 11. which means app crazy. What things should I do to make sure we can talk over our Prevails? Text? What apps would work best for us? I thought if the phone got screwed up, they could mail it to me so I could fix it, and then I could return it back. Is there a way to protect the apps I use - superuser, etc, from those two deleting it so they can have more room for apps?

Many thanks... also thinking about tablets for them with webcam - any input would also be great. low cost, well supported in this community, obviously, droid technology.....

bella

 

[Caeadas]

We should all be thanking you, it takes one hell of a person to serve their country like you are, and i wish you the best.

back to business... The most popular voice over IP service is probably skype. Theres apps for android, iphone and PCs. It has video chat, voice chat, skype to telephone, and a bunch of other stuff. While i've never messed with it personally I have seen 12 people from US, canada, britain and germany play games together on skype calls, so it must be pretty stable.

Free Skype internet calls and cheap calls to phones online - Skype

Another thingy I've seen is Google Voice, using SIPdroid to connect to a VoIP system. Its more like a regular telephone, with voicemail, texting and such, but you can use it on a pc as well. It takes a bit of work to set up though, theres lots of guides for it.

My nephew uses a texting app on his android mp3 player, I think its textplus, but I'm not 100% sure, since he only uses it as backup when his cellphone is dead. It runs on Wi-fi as well.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gogii.textplus&hl=en

And finally, if you're in an area with no cell service, you have no need of a cellular radio in your phone. JuiceDefender can shut off any radios you don't need, and save your battery. Specifically, you can use its "Tablet mode" to completely turn off CDMA and 3g. It doubles my battery life just controlling data and wifi, it should do much better for yours. Unfortunately the tablet mode is in JD ultimate, so it will cost you five bucks. IMHO its worth it.

I bricked the phone trying to put CTMod 2.5 on, and am in CWM trying to get CTMod off. Which mod should I try next?

Darn, you snuck that in on me... what exactly happened to your phone? First thing i can say is you shouldn't be using anything CTmod 2.xxx, those are old. use CTmod 3.6 (although i assume its a typo). You don't have to remove roms, just reflash the new zip, and it will overwrite. Also, if your phone will boot into CWM it will probably boot back into download mode, so reflash odin to start over if you need to. Or if you followed my guide, you should of had a clockworkmod backup of the stock rooted setup saved on your computer

 

[Caeadas]

Many thanks... also thinking about tablets for them with webcam - any input would also be great. low cost, well supported in this community, obviously, droid technology.....

While there isn't any modding options for the yet, I still have to recommend the samsung galaxy players. They're basically smartphones minus the phone, like an ipod touch. They range from the 3.6" which is same size as our prevail, to the big 5.0". which is the same as the galaxy note, and is pretty close to a tablet. Best part is they're all under $300.

Galaxy Players | Samsung

 

[nmd243]

Thanks Caeadas!

I'll try the CTMod 3.6 - I didn't try it since your guide had a warning for it that seemed recent.

I knew about skype, google voice, and a texting app. I'm going to start testing the phones, writing instructions, building instruction files for PC, etc. I didn't know about Juice Defender, that's going to be a good one for me!

Thanks for the thoughtful responses... I think prepping to leave is worse than being away from home...

bella

 

[DarkJedi]

Try GrooVe IP Lite. It is FREE and connects to your Google Voice account without the hassle of setting up SIPdroid and such.

I use it on my Prevail in areas with Wi-Fi and no cellular service (like on the Death Star... still need to talk to the base commander about that)... and on my Xoom (which of course has no cellular at all).

 

[wetbiker7]

Take care and God Bless.

 

[Lordvincent 90]

Groove ip was so painless to set up! Install Google voice, sign in. Install grooveip, sign in. Make free outgoing phone calls via wifi! (tested in airplane mode, which is much easier than having an app disable the cdma radio, imho)

But again very easy, and will be very nice when I'm in those towns that do not support boost/sprint service.

 

[Caeadas]

I'll try the CTMod 3.6 - I didn't try it since your guide had a warning for it that seemed recent.

Yeah CTmod had a slight capitalization error that was stopping it from booting, but Koumajutsu found it pretty quick and Bloodawn fixed it within a day. Thats the good thing about these devs here, they accomplish things a hundred times faster than anyone at any phone company ever could.

Groove ip was so painless to set up! Install Google voice, sign in. Install grooveip, sign in. Make free outgoing phone calls via wifi! (tested in airplane mode, which is much easier than having an app disable the cdma radio, imho)

I thought airplane mode turned off all the radios.... maybe I was wrong. Will google voice + grooveip accept incoming gVoice calls as well? I get terrible reception at home

 

[Lordvincent 90]

Airplane mode does turn off all radios, but the wifi toggle then turns the wifi radio back on

And, as far as i can tell, the free service only supports outgoing calls, i have not looked into a paid option. So possibly..? For a small fee, perhaps.

 

[DarkJedi]

GrooVe IP both sends and receives calls made to/from your Google Voice number. I get incoming calls and make outgoing calls when out camping at the KOA (no cell service, but get Wi-Fi from the campground).

 

[tube517]

+1 for Groove IP/Google Voice. I work at home and I use this for free. I keep Wifi on and it works great.