TITAM - Technical issues that affected me

Looking for rooting help with my new GSIII, I found this very helpful thread from XDA Developers .  User "Mrrobinson" has created several modified-stock images that give the user root access without really changing anything else.  This was useful to me, since I really don't want to fool around with custom ROMs right now. I did/do know something about embedded electronics, but nothing specific about the Android rooting process.  So there were some points I was not clear on when I did my first root.  They caused me much anxiety, but they did not have to. [Update]:  Some of these items are fixed in the original thread, some are new/not. 0.  Flashing the wrong ROM to your phone is a great way to make it non-recoverable.  Unfortunately, the thread does not make clear which images are which. In the thread listed above, the root66 GLW image is for Wind Mobile.  (GLW is Globalive, which is the parent company of Wind.)  TMO is for T-Mobile (ob...

My new 2012 Vaio Z was putting out a ridiculously low output on the headphone jack.  Not enough to notice until I took a plane trip, when I realized I couldn't actually hear most of my movies - even at 100% volume. (This is with some Sony noise-cancelling headphones, which have always worked well for the past 50 hours of flying time.) Anyway, the instructions most helpfully provided by Antriksh Yadav about how to boost the volume on the Vaio E series helped quite a bit.   On my Z, the Dolby enhancements were switched off for some idiotic reason.  Turning Dolby on boosted the headphones output by at least 50%.  Selecting "Movie" mode gave the midrange a bit of boost, good for dialogue. The studio quality made no difference, the disable all sound effects was already unchecked, and there are no equalization settings on my Z as there are on the E.  But the Dolby tip alone was enough to raise my headphone audio from useless to usable. If this isn't en...

OK, so the "Z3" is really the SVZ13, according to Sony.  Most everyone else is calling it the Z3, or maybe the Vaio Z 2012 Edition.  The model I'm referring to is the first Vaio Z with the Ivy Bridge chipset, came out in early 2012. Anyway, the Clear-Coat skin for the VPC-Z2 model will fit the SVZ13 / Z3 model fine.  I've done it on mine.  It includes pieces for the sheet battery too.  Good fit and looks good too. Caveats:  As with all skins, it is hard to get 100% of the air bubbles out.  It can also be hard to handle the large pieces, and figuring out which pieces go where can be a bit of a PITA. The key seems to be to keep your hands only a little bit wet (to prevent sticking/fingerprints) but get the film and the laptop good and wet.  This provides more margin for air to get forced out and lets the film "float" better on the laptop to allow centering/alignment before drying. You will want more of the application fluid than is provided...