COMPUTASSIST

I recently got an HTC Hero cell phone (on Sprint) running Google's Android operating system. Android has much in common with my old favorite, the Palm OS: it's versatile, efficient, elegant, accessible, and developer and user friendly.

Not to mention eminently hackable. 

Over at xda-developers they are working on several improvements to the Hero, including new ROM images (new versions of the phone OS that fix bugs and/or add new features), system tweaks, themes and wallpapers, and numerous other projects. I am currently running the Fresh ROM 1.1 on my phone. It adds many tweaks to the stock ROM, speeds up the interface, adds useful utilities, removes unused vendor apps, and more. Installing it is somewhat technical, but if you are willing to read and follow instructions there is a lot of help on the site. The Fresh ROM removes just about every problem or annoyance I had with the phone originally.

Here's another tip: If you have a Hero and you've noticed it takes too long for the ringer to sound on an incoming call (a.k.a. "ringer lag"), there is a fix for that. Over on Androidforums.com there is a thread with details . The fix involves changing the slot cycle index to a lower value, improving the ringer response time considerably.

Both of these examples show the main benefit of open systems. When there is an active community of users and developers who have access to code and unlocked hardware, new features and bug fixes come at a rapid pace. Users don't have to wait on manufacturers to release updates -- they come from the users themselves.

Note: Google's Android is not as truly open as I could wish. Some parts are proprietary. And HTC violates the GPL by not releasing kernel source immediately when a new phone becomes available, or in some cases, at all. Hopefully manufacturers will learn the benefits of the GPL and compliance will increase, to everyone's advantage.