Xiaomi Mi3 WCDMA – Rooting, Westernizing, and Cleaning Up a Stable Production Rom – All Files Included!

nbeam published 9 years ago in Android Smartphones & Tablets, Consumer Tech. Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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I finally found a few minutes to write up a short how-to on getting your Chinese Xiaomi Mi3 Smartphone rooted, westernized, and cleaned up!

To make your life much easier, I have actually written a couple of scripts that can be used to remove all of the Chinese bloatware from the phone, install the Google Play Store, and a separate script if you want to root your device.

Now, there are already several pre-packaged roms available that come somewhat cleaned up and with the Play Store pre-installed and are even rooted… however these are all based on development (dev) releases of roms from Xiaomi. In my experience, the dev roms tend to be a bit unstable and a bit sluggish compared with Xiaomi’s production releases. I have also found that the primary method Xiaomi promotes for flashing ROM’s, while very easy, isn’t the best and tends to result in bugs and issues. However there is another Xiaomi supported method using a feature called “fastboot” which is very easy and results in a solid install of Android.

A ROM is simply a type of software/firmware that is installed on special Read Only Memory. In this case the ROM files contain the operating system, Android, and other pertinent files that are required to make the phone work. The installation process is called “flashing” and the terms ROM and Firmware and usually interchangeable.

So the beauty of my method is that you get to use a production rom from Xiaomi which is stable and fast, but you get the advantages of a cleaned up dev rom in that it is totally stable, with a working, minimalist install of the Play Store and you can even root the device you choose. I am not a big fan of the MIUI launcher, nor will many western users be who are used to the advantages that come with using the Google Now launcher and its variants on other phones. Once you are finished with this tutorial you will have the latest features that Google is offering in Kit-Kat including voice actions (saying “OK Google” to your phone which tells it to listen to you and then you can ask for stuff or give commands).

So here is a high-level of what I will be walking you through in more detail. (more…)

Xiaomi Mi3 Smartphone – The Best Value Smartphone You Have Never Heard Of….

nbeam published 9 years ago in Android Smartphones & Tablets. Tags: , ,

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The Xiaomi Mi3 (pronounced “Sh” + “Oww” + “ME” — “ME” “Three”) is one seriously good phone at a seriously low price. You probably aren’t familiar with the Xiaomi brand if you are are a Western reader. However of all the Chinese upstart electronics manufacturers, Xiaomi is perhaps the MOST poised to become a household name before 2016.

Why?

There are several things that set Xiaomi apart from the bulk of other Chinese companies:

1. Quality – Xiaomi over-engineers their phones and tablets in much the same way as Apple and Samsung do. They feel solid, go through rigorous quality control, (more…)

How to Easily Stream Video from Your Android Phone or Windows Computer to Your Roku… for FREE!

nbeam published 9 years ago in Consumer Tech. Tags: , , ,

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I recently had a second child. Her name is Eleanor and she is kind of awesome. Her big sister, Izzy, just turned two… (all parents out there are nodding their heads as they have immediately assessed and understood my circumstances…) So my wife and I have a toddler and a newborn, a situation that has required a bit of time off of work for me. (Hence I have stepped back from the blog in the last month or so…) It has also led to my watching of a lot of Netflix on our Roku 2 XS box as you tend to not get out much the first few weeks after a new kid shows up.

Now, I am an inherently cheap person and I recently ran out of things to watch on Netflix. I do, however, have a digital video collection on one of my laptops at the house and I also have video files on my phone. But hooking either of those things up to our “dumb” TV (as opposed to smart TV) involves much hassle.

In the past, one of my main gripes with the Roku is the fact that it historically has been a real pain to stream your own video to it. Having a bit of time (during the naps of our toddler) and to keep myself somewhat sane I decided to look into the issue again. As a result, I have found some rather phenomenal tools that make use of DLNA to make (more…)

Found a new blog to follow…

nbeam published 9 years ago in Uncategorized.

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My list of reading grows… I follow very few blogs at present but I just came across this author today while doing some other reading:

http://routerjockey.com/

Might be worth taking a glance, he seems like a pretty sharp guy looking to share some help with the rest of the IT community!

Regards

Platform Hardening – General Guidelines…

nbeam published 9 years ago in Information Security. Tags: , , , ,

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Recently I had to produce some very high-level, general documentation for platform hardening. Boy, there isn’t much out there in terms of content when you start researching this topic out. Yes, there are lots of specific hardening docs for specific platforms but if you are like me and need to write generic “policies” or guidelines you need something that is honestly a bit more vague.

I broke my documentation down into two sections, Ideology and Policies… Here was the result:
(more…)