[Hero CDMA Android Development] LiquidSolstice:
Well, this is long overdue. I can't really make any excuses, I've been incredibly busy for the past month or two.

Firstly, I'd like to thank EVERYONE here. Anyone who used the ROM, anyone who gave support for it, anyone who's still using it, and especially the kind souls who donated to me in a time of need (it really helped!).

But this is where I explain my absence.

I'm not as old as many of you might think; truth be told, I'm just a college student. I've been wrapping up my required credits and whatnot to leave my hometown's community college and transfer into a 4-year university, which is my dream and my ambition. This has literally sucked the social life right out of me. I've been lucky to get online long enough to chat with friends, let alone dev for the ROM. The process has been long, painful, complicated, and has had several ups and downs.

Because of my situation, I'm applying for a full ride (all expenses paid) scholarship, which takes some serious dedication. It requires an extremely high GPA and very strict credit requirements, and the process has, again, been filled with lots of fear, doubt, and uncertainty. This has prevented me from maintaining a lot of things, including the ROM.

But as I said, I don't plan on abandoning this ROM. This was my second attempt at a ROM and I have quite a bit of an attatchment to it. I have a bit of spare time at the moment, and there are several things I need to do to this ROM to pull it out of beta. I'm going to require some learning and some help from other users to get these things accomplished:

~ I need help fully integrating Deca's latest DecaFuct kernel into the ROM itself, to remove that irritating step of having to flash the kernel over a second time. I will check the ROM cooking section for assistance, I'm sure it's not as difficult as I think. This should make the experience even better, because the DecaFuct kernel out right now (12/22) is even better than the kernel linked to in the OP.

~ The mail app will be reinserted. I'm very sorry that it was removed.

~ Sprint VVM should not be a hassle to have. I use GVoice, but I understand people like to use VVM instead. A seperate copy of the ROM with Sprint VVM (the latest version) pre-cooked in will be put up as well.

Also, as a side note, I cannot lie. I no longer use my own ROM. I have fallen to temptation and have been experimenting with jaybob's Froyo builds, as well as aosp's CyanogenMod 7 builds, and I must say, they are very well done. Currently, Jaybob's Dec-31 build is my daily driver. I do miss Sense quite a bit; nothing you can do theme-wise really comes close to the elegance and versatility of the many aspects of Sense. Unfortunately, i understand that NFinite has a life. I have not heard from him in ages, and after Zenulator left, I have no idea where the 2.2 Sense port is progress wise. I hope that it can be picked up and brought back to life soon.

As much as I hate to admit this, Sense is beautiful and incredibly functional. But the sad truth is, friends, that the Sprint Hero is reaching the end of its life. Sprint no longer advertises it anymore, and I highly doubt we're going to receive any more updates for it. We will have to find our upgrades where we can, and see how much we can push our phones before our contracts end.

Should Sprint do the impossible and give as another update, I will continue the process to that ROM. However, you should consider LiquidSense 2.1.1 the final ROM in the LiquidSense series (until I move to the next phone, and even then, if i had to upgrade today, I'd probably take the Epic over the EVO, seeing as I like the AMOLED).

Just keep in mind that I might be asking for support for the Froyo builds that I use and you'll see me around the forums doing so. I eventually would like to get into theming ROMs, but that's a bit faraway right now.

Thanks for all the support guys. Keep in mind that my progress on this ROM will be on/off, but I don't want it to be Beta anymore, I want it to be ready-steady-dailydriver :).