Sorry, things are going tough right now. I have been in similar situations in the past and I can relate. Hey, you got a Van.

Can't you find an old cheap XP laptop and Just use free Wi-Fi?

Also, I rarely even use my PC to Download roms anymore. I download them to my phone using public wifi. The d2lte roms require no modification and can be flashed immediately. Even the d2spr versions can be modified on your phone if necessary.

I personally would never consider taking the 4.3 OTA, but that is your choice. I believe that you will need to be on straight stock with the stock recovery for this to work. The only good side is that you will be set for the 4.4.2 Kitkat OTA whenever we get it. At this point, who knows how much this will lock down the phone even more. I would rather wait until the devs have time to work on it.

I am not a big TouchWiz fan as a rule and I much prefer the Kitkat roms that are currently available.

Good luck and don't leave the AF community. We appreciate your contributions.

 

Sorry to hear about what's going on right now bro. Keep ya head up. I too have been in a similar situation and can relate.
I agree with Wy on not taking the update. As he mentioned, a lot can be done without a pc. All you need to do is find a few local free hot spots so you don't use up the 2.5gigs and get throttled. A lot of places have them now. McDonald's is pretty much a for sure thing and their Internet speeds aren't bad at all. Many other public places have them too. You can use those for major downloads like ROMs and stuff. Modems can also be flashed via your recovery too so no pc needed for those.

As long as you have a custom recovery you're good to go for flashing ROMs, kernels, modems, and even changing recoveries if needed.

I wish you all the best and nice to hear you're not leaving the forum. If you have any questions about modding your phone without a pc just post your questions in here. Between all of our active members, there's a lot of help in here if you need it.

Take care man.

 

Park real close to the McDonalds or Starbucks and see if the WiFi extends to the parking lot.
Here's to hoping that your situation improves, keep us posted, and feel free to PM me or Biker if there's anything we can do that you don't want shared publicly. There's a reason this is called a community, if we can't do it directly, there are enough connections here to make things happen, I am confident!

 

I'm really glad to see you're in good spirits bro. Seriously, I've been there and I know it can be tough. As far as sifting through the crap and looking for the good, there's a lot of good there bro. All we need to do is open our eyes and look for it.

Another place you may want to look for Internet is your local public library. Some have them and some don't. It's worth a look. The library computers where I live will even let you save files to an external device. All you would need is a micro SD card to USB converter. It's a USB stick with a slot to slide your micro SD card into. They are cheap too. That way you could use the library computers to download a ROM or other files directly to your SD card if they don't have a wifi connection. :thumbup:

I've got some other info that may help. I'm gonna send you a PM.

 

This is what I'm using for additional external storage, it is very slick and has everything you would need included in order to connect to PC and phone. @Hiiipowers shared this a while back, it has proven to be a great purchase.

Meenova.com, Welcome

 

Oh yeah. You're good 2 go then.

 

DO NOT OTA UPDATE!!!
You'll get back on your feet. Your phone is a computer! It can serve almost all your computer needs.
Keep the rom you're on, free wifi in almost every food/coffee place, get back in your feet ASAP.

 

I agree. Don't stress it too much. Just have a reasonable plan and implement it one day at a time. Do something every day that improves your life. Seek out successful people and people who uplift you. Read and listen to motivational stuff. I like podcasts. Perfect for a van dweller. I don't mean to sound like Pollyanna because each persons situation is different, but I can honestly say that the time I was homeless was in some ways one of the best times of my life. I had time to think. I would never want to do it again, but it was a learning experience. You will learn who your friends are and how the world treats you when you have no money. It is an eye opener.

Don't give up but don't get too used to it either. You have to want something better and you will get it.


BTW, what recovery are you using? I have not had to use ODIN since I rooted the phone. You can flash all the Rom zips from recovery if you are on CWM, TWRP, or Philz. I recommend Philz. You can flash a zip to update to Philz. You really only need Odin if you Bork your phone. Modems and kernels have zips too.

Stay on the rom you are on if you want to, but I would not take the OTA. You will lose root and you don't want to do that without a PC. Also, you don't want Knox limiting your options in the future.

 

Talk about support/help... this particular forum is the best I've ever been on. So touching lol. I have never seen such a friendly group of people -online- that are so willing to help...

 

The guys that have been commenting on your thread are all great helps in this community. Vast arrays of knowledge and always kind about sharing it. This is a good place to be.

 

alpha2k if you live in the South Jersey - Philadelphia area I'd be willing to let you use my PC or help you out in anyway I possibly can. I know its a long shot, but I figured I would throw it out there.

 

They say you need to be on mk3, but mk3 and mk5 are the same (one's for sprint and one's for boost) and people report being fine on both.

What do you mean by coming out of sleep mode, turning the screen on?

I have not read about data not coming back on. So all I can think of is a flash glitch.
I haven't had any problems myself so i don't know, I am on mk3 though.

 

I am at the Dairy Queen near my house getting LS and AICP right now. Lol. I don't worry too much about it. I get to know the folks working there and most of them don't care about it anyway. At some locations you can park outside and get a good signal. Nobody cares if you do.

I don't think that it matters whether you use MK3 or MK5. I stick with MK3.

Edit

Just dirty flashed the newest LS. So far so good. I think I will clean flash AICP. It is a release and my last backup is a about 2 weeks old. I also downloaded the newest AICP Gapps. I found out the last time when I used PA gapps that the OTA didn't work with them.

 

About public Wifi :

A few weeks ago I saw a mother and her 3 kids at McDonald's. Each of them had a device connected to the Internet. Kids from probably 5 to 10. They were well behaved and doing their homework or playing. Much better than a lot of kids. The mother was on a laptop. The rest were on phones, tablets or games. I thought it was cool as they did not look like they were upper income. But she had bought food for them and they were welcome customers.

 

Sorry to hear about your situation alpha2k, but at least you have your health, a job, food, a sweet phone, and at least a few nice things in life. Believe me brother, it could be MUCH worse. As far as the down time, have you thought about the library? Do you have a library card? The memberships are normally free or dirt cheap everywhere. Additionally, the Goodwill always has a ton of books that are really cheap. You can also get epubs or ebooks on your phone, that's what I do. Moon+ Reader is a great ereader for this phone, with tons of customization. Not sure if you took the update or not, I know I've been off the grid awhile, but for me personally, as much as I was so anti-Knox before, since flashed Sprint's KK 4.4.2, which obviously has Knox, personally I can't tell much difference. There's nothing I do now that I couldn't do before. The thing that put me over the edge, is I tried to remember the last time I downgraded a bootloader....and couldn't remember Hope things get back on track for you man, and keep your head up.

 

Funny we're talking about public WiFi. I feel ya alpha. I downloaded wicked x 6.0 earlier today at my local Wendy's sitting in my girlfriends car outside. I got the throttle of death and rely on work or public wifi now. I'm working 50-60 hours a week making crumbs so I'm hardly home besides sleeping. I'm remote flashing on lunch break praying for good flashes and no hiccups.