sadevil.org

I wanted to test some crap in VMWare, didn’t feel like messing with the entire server thing so went for the player. Unfortunately, this thing doesn’t work against the 2.6.32 kernel.

After installation, you can fix it with as follows (as root):


cd /tmp
tar xf /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar
tar xf /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmci.tar

cd vmnet-only
sed -i "/vnetInt.h/ a\#include \"compat_sched.h\"" vnetUserListener.c

cd ../vmci-only/include
sed -i "/compat_page.h/ a\#include \"compat_sched.h\"" pgtbl.h

cd /tmp
tar cf /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar vmnet-only
tar cf /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmci.tar vmci-only


and rerun vmplayer.

Note: This is at your own risk. If you fry your phone, your problem, not mine.

I recently got an HTC Hero. Great phone, I’m loving the Android platform. Pity that you don’t have full access to it, and I actually wanted to merge my old phone (Nokia E65)’s SMS database into this one, so I needed full access.

(Un)fortunately, these days the HTC Hero comes with the latest firmware, 2.73.1100.5, which on the one hand makes rooting harder (fixes several bugs and fastboot no longer works) but on the other hand makes the phone respond a lot better.

After some twiddling and reading on the XDA Developers Forum, I came up with this recipe:

Downloads needed:

• asroot2.zip (current root exploid for Android, works on HTC Hero): http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=244212&d=1257621154
• Superuser.zip (for the su binary and the Superuser.apk): http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=211569&d=1249225060
• Android SDK (for the HTC Hero, it’s the 1.5 platform): http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-1.5.html

Howto:

• Download the Android SDK, and install/extract it somewhere. I’m using Linux and put it under /home/<user>/android/
• Download asroot2.zip, superuser.zip, and extract them in a directory of your choice. For instance, /tmp.
• Change to the Android SDK directory and in that one /tools (here: /home/<user>/android-sdk-linux_86/tools/
• Start adb (Android Debug Bridge): ./abd wait-for-device
• Put your phone in HTC Sync mode: drag the notification bar down and activate HTC Sync

After a while adb should return to the prompt. Should mean your phone has been found.

• Copy asroot2 and su on the phone in /data/local:
  ./adb push /tmp/asroot2 /data/local/
./adb push /tmp/su /data/local/
• Open a shell to the device: ./adb shell
• Make asroot2 executable, and launch it:
  chmod 0755 /data/local/asroot2
/data/local/asroot2 /system/bin/sh

Your phone should greet you with:

[+] Using newer pipe_inode_info layout
Opening: /proc/564/fd/3
SUCCESS: Enjoy the shell.
#

At this point, remount your /system filesystem read-write.
Before remounting, executing the mount command should return a line containing:

/dev/block/mtdblock3 /system yaffs2 ro 0 0

Now, remount the fs:
mount -o remount,rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
(this returns no output)

And now executing mount should return a line like:

/dev/block/mtdblock3 /system yaffs2 rw 0 0

and copy the su binary into /system/bin:
dd if=/data/local/su of=/system/bin/su
and make it executable with root permissions:
chmod 4755 /system/bin/su

Next, copy the Supseruser.apk to the SD card and install it.
Then, reboot your phone (power off and on).

Restart your abd shell, and execute su in your adb shell: su, and on the phone it should come ask if you want to allow root permissions:

Tap “Allow”, et voila, you now have a rooted phone.

As I detailed in my previous post on how to get this phone working with Leopard, upgrading to Mac OS X 10.6 aka Snow Leopard broke things again.

Easy fix though: follow the steps in my previous post, and attached to this post you can find the ‘fixed’ MetaClasses.plist file.

All I actually did was copy this block in the existing MetaClasses.plist:

<key>com.nokia.3109</key>
<dict>
<key>Identification</key>
<dict>
<key>com.apple.cgmi+cgmm</key>
<string>Nokia+Nokia 3109</string>
<key>com.apple.gmi+gmm</key>
<string>Nokia+Nokia 3109</string>
<key>com.apple.usb.vendorid-modelid</key>
<string>0x0421/0x045A</string>
</dict>
<key>InheritsFrom</key>
<array>
<string>family.com.nokia.series40.3rdEd.bus.usb-bt</string>
</array>
<key>Services</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>ServiceName</key>
<string>com.apple.model</string>
<key>ServiceProperties</key>
<dict>
<key>ModelIcon</key>
<string>NOK3109.tiff</string>
<key>ModelName</key>
<string>3109</string>
</dict>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>ServiceName</key>
<string>com.apple.synchro</string>
<key>ServiceProperties</key>
<dict>
<key>MaxCityLength</key>
<integer>50</integer>
<key>MaxEMailLength</key>
<integer>60</integer>
<key>MaxEventLocationLength</key>
<integer>150</integer>
<key>MaxPhoneNumberLength</key>
<integer>48</integer>
<key>MaxPostalCodeLength</key>
<integer>50</integer>
<key>MaxStateLength</key>
<integer>50</integer>
<key>MaxStreetLength</key>
<integer>50</integer>
<key>MaxURLLength</key>
<integer>60</integer>
</dict>
</dict>
</array>
</dict>

Since WP keeps on braking my indentation, just download it here: MetaClasses.plist

I’ve just released phptelemeter 1.35. This version only has a few changes, but I wanted to get it out there:

• Added support for Mobile Vikings
• Added unlimited support for Dommel accounts bug report: 2886030)

As per usual, you can download it from SourceForge.

I recently purchased an Alcatel Onetouch X200 3G USB modem, to be able to use internet on various locations where there is no wired or wifi available. Works fine under Windows/Mac OS X, bit more of a hassle under Linux.

Here are some hints on how to get it to work:

• You need to install usb-modeswitch to switch the card from it’s builtin usb-storage mode to the USBModem mode. Configuration is done in /etc/usb_modeswitch.conf
• Use /dev/ttyUSB2. The other two ports that your modem will give don’t really work well.
• Also, use atleast kernel 2.6.31. Earlier ones might not work.
• Disable PIN authentication on your SIMcard! This one thing was what kept it from working decently – I tried tons of things, and when I disabled the PIN, it worked nearly instantaneously.
  The command to do PIN auth is AT+CPIN=1111 (changing 1111 by your actual PIN), but when issuing this command the modem accepts it, but very often freaks out afterwards. Weird.
  You can find a nice list of GSM modem AT codes on gsm-modem.de.

Thats about it!

I’ve just released phptelemeter 1.34. This version includes the following changes:

• Fixed telemeter4tools parser.
• Added a check for the new scarlet unlimited accounts
• Spellingfix: changed ’seperate’ to ’separate’
• Added support for single-quota separate-info providers, needed since the daily output for the scarlet_web parser was broken.
• Removed “text-transform: lowercase;” from the html publisher (bug report: 2197767)
• Fixed a bug in the scarlet_web code
• Added mysql publisher (feature request: 1671210)
• Limited warn-percentage to 2 digits after the comma (feature request: 1936213)
• Added reset date to over-limit notification mails (feature request: 1837559)

As per usual, you can download it from SourceForge.

Since I’m a lazy git, I want my laptop to automatically switch back & forth between my wired and wireless interfaces. Seems that stuff like Network Manager can do that for you, but it’s not really my thing. I don’t like stuff where you need a GUI to configure it, a duplicaton of network configuration, and it also tends to hang my machine. No idea why, though.

After an afternoon of fiddling around with several things, I came up with the recipe:
1 portion ifplugd, a good mix of ifupdown configuration with guessnet mappings, and some home-grown scripts. Mix well, and let simmer over a hot stove for half an hour. ;)

The details (tailored to Debian Sid):

1. Install ifplugd and guessnet: apt-get install ifplugd guessnet
2. Configure the interface you want ifplugd to monitor. For me, this is eth0 (wired ethernet). You can do this by editing /etc/default/ifplugd and adding eth0 in the INTERFACES field.
   Restart ifplugd (/etc/init.d/ifplugd restart)
3. Edit your /etc/network/interfaces file the way you like it. I’m using multiple wireless entries with guessnet:
   

   mapping ath0
           script guessnet-ifupdown
           map verbose: false
           map debug: false
           map autofilter: true
   
   iface ath0-work inet dhcp
           test wireless essid WORK
           wpa-ssid WORK
           wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
           wpa-proto WPA
           wpa-psk "***"
           wpa-driver wext
   
   iface ath0-home inet dhcp
           test wireless essid HOME
           wpa-ssid HOME
           wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
           wpa-proto WPA
           wpa-psk "***"
           wpa-driver wext
   

   For syntax info, see man guessnet

4. Replace the script in /etc/ifplugd/action.d with something more usable. The installed script only calls ifup or ifdown depending on what’s happening. What we want is to ifdown the interface, and ifup the other.

   Something like this:

   #!/bin/sh
   set -e
   
   WIRED_INTERFACE="eth0"
   WIFI_INTERFACE="ath0"
   WIFI_MODULE="ath_pci"
   IFUPDOWN_STATE="/etc/network/run/ifstate"
   
   if [ $# -ne 2 ]; then
           echo "Incorrect usage!"
           echo "$0:  "
           exit 1
   fi
   
   case "$2" in
   up)
           if [ "$1" = $WIRED_INTERFACE ]; then
                   # Wired interface is going up, bring wireless down
                   # if it is active.
                   WIFI_MODULE_LOADED=$(lsmod | grep ^$WIFI_MODULE | wc -l)
                   if [ $WIFI_MODULE_LOADED -eq 1 ]; then
                           /sbin/ifdown $WIFI_INTERFACE
                           /sbin/rmmod $WIFI_MODULE
                   fi
                   /sbin/ifup $WIRED_INTERFACE
           else
                   /sbin/ifup $1
           fi
           ;;
   down)
           if [ "$1" = $WIRED_INTERFACE ]; then
                   # Wired interface is going down, bring up the
                   # wireless one.
                   /sbin/ifdown $WIRED_INTERFACE
   
                   /sbin/modprobe $WIFI_MODULE
                   /sbin/ifconfig $WIFI_INTERFACE up
                   sleep 5
                   /sbin/ifup $WIFI_INTERFACE
   
                   WIFI_CONFIGURED=$(grep ^$WIFI_INTERFACE $IFUPDOWN_STATE | wc -l)
                   if [ $WIFI_CONFIGURED -eq 0 ]; then
                           # Interface was not configured, bring it back down
                           # to save power
                           /sbin/rmmod $WIFI_MODULE
                   fi
           else
                   /sbin/ifdown $1
           fi
           ;;
   esac
   

Now, every time ifplugd configures up eth0, ath0 is automatically deconfigured, and vice versa.
The actual configuration of the interfaces is still in /etc/network/interfaces, so you can still handle it by hand if you want to.

As always, it works fine for me, but YMMV, and TIMTOWTDI!

A good friend of mine introduced me to a new game: World Of Goo!

I’ve finished the demo, and it’s damned addictive ;)

There are user levels available too, so the gameplay isn’t limited to the game itself ;)

And, as a nice bonus: It’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux!

For a reason not to be mentioned here, I needed to install Windows XP (legal license) on my Macbook. Easily done, Boot Camp Assistant, install windows, install drivers, the works.

Then I wanted to update to Boot Camp 2.1, to be able to update windows to SP3.

Big nono. Didn’t want to install. Update constantly failed, no matter what.

After some googling, I ran across this post on the MacRumors Forums, which basically says that to install it, you need to open up your registry editor (start -> run -> regedit.exe), do a search for “Boot Camp Services” and locate the key which reads “Language”. Modify it, and change the Decimal value to 1033 (hex 409).

Restart the installer after this, and it’ll install. Go figure.