Multiple personalities

Nearly a month ago I asked myself what to do with my old phone now that my new one had arrived. Well, it turns out there are many merits to tinkering with a device which you don't have to rely on as a primary means of communication. I have long extolled the virtues of Windows Mobile as one of those operating systems where you can change anything from the browser to the UI, from the file explorer you use to the icons which represent the applications. What I hadn't expected, however, was the ability to totally change the OS of some of these phones. For that we have to thank the geniuses at HTC for making their phones so damn hackable, and the even greater geniuses at xda-developers for doing the actual hacking, and sharing the fruits of their labour with us mere mortals.

Their latest efforts extend the life of my old HTC Touch Diamond far beyond what I could rightfully expect, because not only have they tweaked Windows, they have enabled the hardware to run not one but two completely different operating systems. For instance, not only can you dual boot into the latest build of Android on the phone, you can also run Blackberry OS via the Blackberry application suite. I can tell you that exploring both these OSes will provide me with many happy hours of tweaking!