1. Root the existing Froyo.DK28 using instructions found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1076967
2. Backup applications and data using Titanium backup (I bought the PRO version, although it looks like you could accomplish what is needed with the free one)
3. Odin back to EC05 using instructions found here (addl instructions below): Flash/Restore to Froyo EC05
   • Download and Install drivers first (they fail to actually tell you to install them)
   • Change Odin to compatibility mode for XP SP3 and run it as an administrator
   • Sometimes it may help to remove the SD Card and/or Battery before entering download mode
   • If you get stuck, like I did, realize that Odin is very picky about USB cables
   • As long as you can get back to the downloading mode, you should be ok
4. Boot into the stock EC05, and check Settings > About Phone > System Updates > Update Android. It should be downloading Gingerbread.EI22. Let the update complete.
5. Root the new Gingerbread.EI22 using the instructions found here: http://forums.androidcentral.com/epic-4g-rooting-roms-hacks/132495-rooting-ei22-gingerbread-instructions.html or here:http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1339478
• The instructions have a bad link to ACSRecovery1.0.0.5.tar.md5 and su-3.0-efgh-signed.zip but the good link can be found on page 11
• Be sure to get the file ending in md5. For some of these there are .tar and .tar.md5 so be careful.
6. Reinstall Titanium backup from the market and restore applications and data

Of course the difficulty depends on the complexity of the implementation, however the design is fairly simple. Application data is organized and maintained by Android today. Users have the opportunity to clear it through the Manage Applications interface. Would it be so hard as to sync it or back it up as well? This could be easily implemented for ALL applications.

The versioning could be maintained separately. Mobile app version 1.1-1.8 and honeycomb versions 1.0-1.5 are compatible with application configuration 1.1, etc.

Here is the best feature request for application data sync / backup I could find. Please go star it if you agree.

The high points of design I agree with are

• All applications should be supported
• Only application data need be supported, not the actual application
• Sync to Cloud
• Backup to Local or Cloud
• On demand or on schedule or triggered syncs/ backups w/connection and/or size based controls
• Compression
• Block hashing
• Encryption

With multi-device users, this feature is essential, and only able to be provided by Google.

If you haven’t checked out Wuala yet, you really should. Dropbox has had several security concerns recently and Wuala is a more functional alternative. Maybe all you want is folder sync, but look at what Wuala can do and you may change your mind.

How isn’t Wuala like Dropbox?

• Wuala is not a sync utility, it is a P2P online storage utility. Wuala files are not on your PC, they are in the P2P cloud.
• The Wuala client is not a daemon (although you can treat it like one if you want, see Sync below)
• You can have access to a 60GB music collection on 3 PCs without using 180GB
• Logging off means your files are no longer available on the computer.
• The Wuala client is psuedo read only.
• You create a new local drive during install in order to have full read/write functionality.
• Wuala encrypts your files client-side with AES 128-bit encryption.
• The original, unencrypted files are never uploaded.
• You get 1GB of online space free. (Or 2GB by clicking on this link)
• You can go ‘pro’ by either paying or trading space.
  • Pro means you can use Sync (like Dropbox), and other benefits like Backup.
• You can trade space to get more online storage.
  • You store their encrypted files and they store yours.
  • The more you share the more you get up to 100GB.
• Logged off you stay connected to the P2P network and continue to gain uptime (relevant to trading space).

How is Wuala like Dropbox?

• Sync will keep a Wuala online folder in sync with a local PC folder.
  • Do this on multiple computers to emulate Dropbox.
  • Or this can just keep an up to date offline copy.
• There are Android and iPhone clients
• There is a web client (Java applet to support client side decryption)

Sign up here

Anyways I tried seating it about 20 times, and was finally able to get it to go all the way in. Don’t force it, just jiggle it. It will go. It may help to remove the bumpers and get it in with just the tray, and then try again with the bumpers.

Good luck!

I reset the phone, I re-synced my primary google account (google apps), added my gmail google account, updated Profile, updated PRA, cleared the Market cache, turned the phone off and took out the battery for a few minutes, and still continued to have the problem. I called tech support and went through to 3rd tier pretty quickly only to have the guy suggest a reset to factory. I said I hoped that Google had more answers than Sprint and hung up.

Sure enough on Google this morning I found this page. Just so you don’t have to go read it all, what worked for me is below:

Applications–>Settings–>Applications–>Manage applications
Menu–>Filter: All
Download Manager–>Clear data

And what do you know…I get my ability to download back without doing a factory reset.

*WARNING**Go to the top right of your screen, click Account & then click Edit Friends. Go to the left side of your screen and click Phonebook. Everyone’s phone # is being published. Please repost (sic) to let your friends know of this change in security, so that they can remove their phone numbers or change their privacy settings…

I went and checked out my Phonebook and noticed that all the phone numbers in there were from Facebook friends that had them listed in their profiles. I think it’s not so bad for Facebook to organize the information that people have made available to me already. Apparently this is a pretty old feature I had just never seen. False alarm. Nothing to see here.

Then I saw this message at the top of the screen.

To learn more about Phonebook or to delete any contacts imported from your phone, click here.

From my phone?!? Click…

Facebook Phonebook displays contacts you have imported from your phone, as well as your Facebook friends. If you would like to remove your mobile contacts from Facebook, you need to disable the feature on your mobile phone and visit this page.

Remove Imported Contacts

When you import contacts into Facebook from your email, mobile, or instant messaging service, we may use this information to create friend suggestions for you and your friends. We also display these contacts in your Facebook Phonebook.

If you choose to remove your imported contacts, they will no longer appear in your Phonebook and friend suggestions may be less relevant to you and your friends.

To remove all imported contacts, please make sure to disable the Facebook synchronization feature on your phone first, if you have ever enabled it. Then, click the ‘Remove’ button below.

It turns out that Facebook is uploading contact information from your phone and storing the phone numbers. I can’t find any official information about this beyond what I posted above. Within Phonebook though, it looks to me as if imported numbers have a phone icon, while profile numbers list MOBILE or HOME, etc.

This information is not being formally added to profiles, but it is obviously associated with accounts. Why is this upsetting? Because Facebook has my phone number, you know that one I intentionally left off Facebook. I see no options to view or remove this information. I can’t even see what they have on me. It wouldn’t surprise me if Facebook is collecting other contact data from phones, such as email address, physical address, birthday, messenger screennames, and other contact information that most phones store.

I checked a friend’s Phonebook and Blackberry®, and several phone numbers had been imported. In the Blackberry® Facebook app there is a setting under Options to disable the syncing of Contacts. I do not know if it is enabled by default.

After some more searching it looks like not all phones with a Facebook app are syncing this information. I have an HTC Hero with an Android Facebook App and a HTC Facebook App and I have Sync Contacts checked, however none of the phone numbers in my Phonebook came from my phone. They are all listed on profiles. I’m sure eventually Facebook will upgrade their android app to sync as well.

If anyone has any information about other phones, or better Facebook apps that can enable a one way only sync, please post in the comments.

First let me explain what I expect to occur and why. Predatory lending, naivety and irresponsibility on the part of the home buyer have led us to our current situation. Many people who should not have received mortgages did. Being already squeezed by their mortgage, rising oil and food prices left no way to make ends meet. In combination, a bubble on housing prices burst, leaving many actual responsible homeowners upside-down in debt, with seemingly no hope to recover.

The current result is an overreaction in the other direction. Lenders have all but stopped giving out mortgages. While requirements and qualifications will eventually become reasonable again, it will take time for an average American to be able to get a mortgage. Most importantly, no one will ever give out another sub-prime mortgage. This will reduce demand on housing drastically. With reduced demand comes reduced value. With an estimated 50-65% reduced housing demand I expect to see a 20-40% overall reduced home value. This is on top of any bubble burst experience some have already had.

At the same time there will be an inverse increased demand for rental property. Currently rent prices are just below mortgages, but that relationship will reverse. I expect to see rent prices stabilize around 150% of a standard mortgage payment.

These increased rental revenues will prop up home values, and perhaps even return them to their original position. Investors will pick up massive amounts of real estate for the sole purpose of collecting rent. I expect to see large firms build entire neighborhoods with the intention of renting out 95% of the property.

We will see a massive reduction in the percentage of home owners in the United States. Instead of paying a mortgage and trying to make ends meet while building equity, we will instead see people simply unable to afford rent. This forms a cycle of debt, leaving no way to work up the 20-40% cash soon required to put down on a house. Anyone who doesn’t already have a mortgage is in for a world of hurt.

Somebody wins here, and it can be you. Be ready to buy property when the price drops. Do your best to become a landlord. The more private landlords out there the smaller the impact will be.

After 7 calls and 2.5 hours on hold with Sprint I have finally done it.
It was really not that difficult, I just needed the special number to dial (#777) to make it happen.
For the rest of you here is a step by step guide.

1. Turn bluetooth on for the PC and the phone (Menu, Settings, Bluetooth, On)
2. Add the computer as a trusted device on the phone (Shouldn’t be necessary but it seems to not work without this configured first)
1. On the phone visit Menu, Settings, Bluetooth, Trusted Devices, Add New
2. Choose search. Select your PC name from the list and choose “Add to Trusted”
3. Enter a NUMERIC pin on the phone. Press Done
4. The System Tray on the PC will pop up with a pair request. Click on it and enter the code you just entered on the phone. Press OK.
5. Name the device on the phone (or leave it the same) and press OK
3. Make the phone visible (Menu, Settings, Bluetooth, Visibility, Visible for 3 min.)
4. Open My Bluetooth Places on the PC (Right click on Bluetooth System Tray Icon)
5. Choose Bluetooth Setup Wizard link on the left of My Bluetooth Places.
6. Choose “I know the service I want to use and I want to find a Bluetooth device that provides that service” and press Next.
7. Choose “Dial Up Networking” and press next.
8. Choose the icon representing your phone and press next.
9. Press “Configure”
10. Press “Configure” again
11. Put in the phone number #777 and press Ok twice. Press Finish
12. Bubble will appear from System Tray asking about pairing. Click on it.
13. Enter an security code using NUMBERS and press Ok
14. Phone will alert you of an attempted pairing. Choose Yes, enter the security code you just made up and then choose ok.
15. Connection will succeed and Dial Up Networking dialog will appear on the computer.
16. Username and password should be empty and phone number should be #777. Press Dial
17. It should connect. Your phone will ask you if you want to accept the connection. Say yes
18. The phone screen will change to read Data Connection.
19. Your computer is online!

Other things you can do to improve your experience…

• Turn on auto-accept on the phone for the trusted device
• Stop the PC from asking you the username, password and phone number by…
  1. Right click on the phone in the My Bluetooth Places screen and choose properties
  2. Choose Configure, then the options tab
  3. Uncheck prompt for name and password and prompt for phone number
  4. Choose OK and then OK again

Looking back throughout history most people are aware that we used to have sound money. No one seems to know what that means though, and mentioning the gold standard results in virtually no intelligent conversation. Technically our country was never on the gold standard, but was on the silver standard. Here is an excerpt from the Coinage Act of 1792.

SEC. 9.
…
Dollars or Units—each to be of the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current, and to contain three hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenths parts of a grain of pure, or four hundred and sixteen grains of standard silver.
…
Cents—each to be of the value of one hundredth part of a dollar, and to contain eleven penny-weights of copper.

What did the currency look like after the Coinage Act of 1792? It was pretty simple actually. The requirements for currency were set forth in that act and included a standard amount of copper, silver or gold to be in each coin, certain markings on the coins, and that it had to be coined in a United States Mint. You could bring your copper (for half cents and cents), silver (for half dismes, dismes, quarter dollars, half dollars and dollars) and gold (quarter eagles, half eagles and eagles) to a United States Mint and have it coined for you. This made precious metals very easy to use in trade, because every coin had a guaranteed standard value.

At this time the value of the currency was contained within the currency itself. Yes, the value of metals fluctuate on the market, but so does everything else. It just depends on what you view as your base. It’s hard to adjust your thinking because the dollar has become so ingrained in our lives, but try making a transition to look at gold (or worth) as the base and the dollar as fluctuating.

The truth is the dollar has had 7.5% devaluing from Jan 1st, 2008 through June 30th, 2008. Thinking of the dollar as the base means that’s your default holding. Your salary, bank account, and retirement fund just took a 7.5% loss! If you were paid in oil futures instead of dollars you’re salary would have doubled over that same period of time.

The removal of a commodity backing from our currency made the currency itself an independently tradeable item on the market. No longer was it tied to the supply and demand of gold or silver or copper, but only to the demand of itself. Given that paper has little to no intrinsic worth, that’s a pretty dangerous position to hold. If the IRS stopped accepting Federal Reserve Notes then they would become worthless overnight.

The four steps of currency in our country:
1) Currency is made (literally) of our wealth
2) Currency is a note exchangeable for wealth (but easier to carry with you)
3) Currency is a note exchangeable for wealth only if you are a foreign country
4) Currency is no longer a note and not directly exchangeable for wealth

The problem with our current position, (4), is that the Fed prints money, not wealth. They bail out Bear Sterns, Fannie and Freddy by printing money. There is now more supply and therefore less demand.

Imagine yourself in a simpler time. You have a bunch of gold. Would you rather hang on to the gold or trade it for a note? Many would put it in a bank vault and take a note in return (remember the note is for your original gold, not for dollars). A note is easier to store, easier to trade, etc. Maybe the bank comes out with a currency, and instead of giving you a note for your original gold, they will buy your gold from you in exchange for some of this currency. The problem is they control the currency, and have ability to flood the market at any time. All of a sudden your gold could cost twice as much to get back. Sound like a deal?