[HTC Desire S] lowveld:
Post #1000 Thank YOU

So, this is my post #1000, and I wanted to make it special. So, here I go, completely off-topic, talking about my XDA experience up to now, kind of an auto-biography. If you don't feel like reading my rambling, just jump to the last lines, where I tank you all. :)

I started on XDA in 2008, the proud (for a very short while) owner of a WM6 Asus P527, soon to be replaced by a HTC Touch2, again WM. Say what you will, but that phone handled what I wanted from it very well, I was actually sad to sell it last year, to scrap up some money to pay for the DS. And so I arrived to the Android world. For the first months this was pretty much stale, remember when we were almost all S-OFF? Then after the "Revolutionary Event", I stared using Virtuous Unity, and enjoying it. At this time, I was pretty much a "user only", lurking around, sometimes *****ing about something or other, but pretty much kept to myself.

Then Virtuous Unity stopped being updated, and I thought to myself "Hell, I could do this. I don't know java, but I code C for a living, how hard can it be?". So I began, enter Hyperion. I downloaded the official RUU, did the first few mods, coded a new kernel for it, and this was actually the easy part. It took me a couple of hours to fix the inverted front camera thing. Learning what the hell "odexed" meant, learning how android integrated with the underlying linux infrastructure, that was the really hard thing for me those first days. But I kept on learning, and the community kept cheering me on.

Somewhere in the Hyperion thread is a post by me saying "Got my hands on a Sensation RUU, let's see what I can do with it". And Endymion began. This was a major step up in difficulty, as Hyperion was based on a DS RUU, pretty much all worked out fine without many issues. Endy involved a lot more work, and was my first real "port". You would be surprised with how much can go wrong. Simple things that are really hard to fix. I remember on the early Endy days that the microphone worked everywhere except on the Voice Search. That almost drove me nuts...

Throughout all these projects, one thing was always there: The DS community, which I have never seen the like on any other internet forum or venue. Positive reinforcement, faith on what I could do, understanding about the failures, kind words when needed, this was the real motivator without which I would never have gone on and on. There were many of you, and I don't want to leave anyone out, but I want to thank some of those "early guys", some of which the newbies around here may not even know. Enigmaamit, for the faith in me, and the constant "marketing campaigns", Oly for *****ing around and making me improve some stuff (I still think HoneyHD rocks and stock look is for sissies), det66 for unquestioning support and a major good taste on books (det is from "detritus" from Terry Pratchet's Discworld books), ben_pyett for being exactly like he is, and probably the most faithful Endy user around (he doesn't usually sleep around with other roms :P), fbcyborg for being to my knowledge the last "original" Hyperion user left standing. And so many others... Don't feel left out if not named, I'm just coughing up names from the top of my head.

Then I decided to take another step up, and move from porting/modding/tweaking to actually building everything. Enter Reaper. This is to date what I consider my most accomplished project, and brought about another completely new level of learning. Going from smali tweaking on HTC proprietary decompiled files to android java source code is like turning on the headlights when driving on a pitch black road at night. A all new world opens up to you. Reaper tought me how android REALLY works, and taught me so much... You know that longpress keys tweaking? Just that little thing taught me the equivalent of a university level java course. And then came FTL launcher, and here I am. At this point I would also like to thank the guys that started on Reaper with me: Tectas, for always being there for testing/reporting, and for being a really good person (I don't know you that well, but I am never wrong about these things), and Treti (whom I thought I had killed the wifi chip, but it turned out I didn't). And of course, all the others that came from Endy, you're too many to mention.

This post is getting ridiculously long, I don't even know if it XDA will let me publish it. But I really want to thank you all for your support, and tell you that I have never had so much fun with any gadget as with my DS in these last months, and all because of you. I feel privileged to be part of this forum, full of inquisitive, intelligent, and overall decent human beings as you are. Decency is a rare commodity these days. And of course, a big thanks to all other devs for the work they do. Proxuser, Nexx, Superkid, you rock.

Thank you all.

Cheers