HTC has always known their biggest weakness: Windows Mobile. They’ve done their best to hide the aged interface in glossy costumes and bolster performance, but they can only do so much—the OS is slow, buggy and can drain battery life on certain hardware. Luckily, Windows Mobile responds well to per-device modification. A dedicated community of hackers called XDA has built a collection of streamlined, debugged, turbocharged OS builds (or ROMs) to resuscitate your flagging HTC phone, along with some less daunting smartphone tweaks for the weaker stomached.
Digital cameras are generally closed platforms, built and programmed under the assumption that they would never be modified. To get more features, you pay more for different firmware, even though the guts are mostly the same. Canon didn’t batten down their hatches quite enough. The result is CHDK, a full-featured OS substitute that runs from your memory card and unlocks the tremendous unrecognised potential of most Canon A-series and SD Elphs plus several others—for free.
