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Techno Monk
Root: Kindle Fire and HTC Desire

Rooting the Kindle Fire:

While my brother-in-law (BIL) was staying with us over the past two days, I got a crack at two new android devices I had not seen yet.  Of course they did not leave the house without being rooted.  I sort of talked BIL into it by tempting him with more free apps and divesting himself of all the carrier provided garbage.  Not a hard sell.

We attacked the Kindle Fire first.  Let me say, first off, that I was really impressed with the device.  Having an iPad myself, I had the defacto tablet to compare the Fire to.  The Fire came along with a lot of hype and it appears to live up to it, especially after being rooted.  We did not put cyanogen on it but just rooted and got the android market on there.  It is not an iPad by a long shot, however, it is a really nice tablet / ereader for the price.

We followed this guide and video to root it.  The process was ultra smooth and took less than an hour to do.  No hiccups at all except having to do it in bootcamp because of some windows only tools.  Not a huge deal for me but it might suck for people without access to a Windows installation.

We also followed this guide to put the android market on it.  We did not do the custom recovery or CM7 mod because I was not sure he wanted his Fire to look like a big phone from the CM7 mod.

Want Android Market?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTkegVrnAvA

Want Custom Recovery?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqKZLMaRSgc

Want to install CM7 (Or Any Fire ROM)?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-zTJWY3CRc

Rooting the HTC Desire:

This was even easier than the Kindle Fire, probably because I rooted my phone with Cyanogenmod in the past.  When I did my HTC Hero about 2.5 years ago, the process was much less refined and took a lot longer to do.  It is quite amazing how far the process has come in that time frame.  I do wonder why we still have to do this to our phones, I would like to see them have the rooting option be a check box like running unauthorized apps.  Simple and easy.

We followed this guide Cyanogenmod HTC Desire and everything went super smooth.  Easy to follow guide and just about anyone should be able to follow it.  The CM7 was a huge hit with the BIL.  CM7 has such a clean and smooth interface it is hard not to like it after getting away from the default carrier interface.  I really enjoyed being the one to root the phones and pull back the curtain a bit for the BIL.  He has not really had much exposure to hacking and I am hoping this little taste of fully owning an electronic device sheds some light on the options that are available for those who choose to seek them.

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