Getting Started
Connecting your phone
Download and install the USB Handset Drivers from the files page.
In your phone, go to Menu, Settings, Connection, USB Settings, Default Connection, and change it to "Data Connection". *TIP* When set to this mode, your phone will only charge via USB cable if you have the handset drivers installed. When set to "Mass Storage", the phone doesn't need any drivers installed to be charged via computer and USB cable.
Plug your phone in, your computer should detect your phone as a Motorola USB Device, and install it as with any new hardware.
You phone should now be completely installed, and any software you will be using should automatically connect to it. Now you can commence h4x|nG.
Create a working Directories
By this I mean, try to stay organized, you'll thank yourself later.
Create an Apps folder: For example, create a folder on your desktop labeled "V3XX". Most of the apps you will be using don't have installers, so you'll pretty much just extract them out of their zip/rar file to somewhere on your computer. Instead of just somewhere, create a folder in "V3XX" you just made called "Apps", you can place all of your non installer apps in there to keep them all in the same place. After you extracted your apps, you can create shortcuts if you want and put them someplace special, like your desktop.
Create Backup of Originals folder: This part is going to be very important. I want you to create a folder in "V3XX" called "Backup of Originals", within that folder I want you to create two more folders, "Seems" and "System files". Here, is where you should store all the original seems and system files before you modify anything, this way you can always revert back in case anything happens.
Create a Skins folder: Create a folder called "Skins" in your V3XX directory, here is a good place to extract all the skins you may download for your phone.
Backing up System files: Before you overwrite any file on your phone, you need to back it up in the "System files" folder with the correct path as installed on the phone. For example lets say you want to backup a copy of the mma_ucp file on your phone which has to do with your menu system. This file is stored in "/a/mobile/system/" on the phone, so therefore you should create the same directory path (ex. C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Desktop\New V3XX\Backup of Originals\System Files\a\mobile\system\ ) in your backup directory so that you know where that file goes on your phone, incase you need to restore it.
Backing up Seems: Its kinda self explanatory where seems go on the phone, just keep a copy of the original that was on your phone in the Seems folder, and DON'T edit it.
Create an Editing folder: Similar to the backup of originals directory, create an "Edited Files" in your V3XX folder, then add "Seems" and "System Files" folders. Here is where you will be keeping the system and seem files you will be editing/modifying.
The Software
Pretty much, if you only want to do a few things, like a seem edit, delete locked ringtones, upload and download misc system files, then P2K Commander and XVI32 is all you need. You should already have the USB drivers installed. If you want to start skinning your phone, get Skiman as well, you will also need RSD Lite for the skins that need to be flashed to the phone (easy, don't be scared), these files have the .hs suffix. If you want to tweak the menu system a bit, you'll want MMA Advanced editor. All files can be found on the files page.