Sunday, December 20, 2009

Android dialog bug fixed

Cool, in Android SDK 2.0 the bug in which onPrepareDialog was not called on an activities reincarnation is fixed.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Improve internet connection

If windows internet connection slow or glitchy, try the following utility:
http://www.speedguide.net/files/TCPOptimizer.exe

To analyze the tcp/ip traffic, try Wireshark (http://www.wireshark.org/)

Monday, November 2, 2009

merge two files

To convenient merge two files use the diff utility with the -D option.
The command will be like:
diff -D _NEWFILE_ old_file.ext new_file.ext >result_file_to_edit.ext


With that -D option the result file will contain the C-preprocessor code, like

#ifdef _NEWFILE_
content only the new_file.ext
#endif /* _NEWFILE_ */

#ifndef _NEWFILE_
content only the old_file.ext
#endif /* _NEWFILE_ */

or

#ifndef _NEWFILE_
content only the old_file.ext
#else /* _NEWFILE_ */
content only the new_file.ext
#endif /* _NEWFILE_ */

Then use a text editor to manually search for the _NEWFILE_ string and modify the text
as you think it should be.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

ftp thru a NAT firewall

I always was wondering, how ftp data connection gets through a firewall with NAT.
A ftp client on a machine with local IP (192.168.x.x) sends its own local address, like:
---> PORT 192,168,0,2,150,117
but the server still manages to establish the data connection to the client machine.
The answer to this question is simple - the NAT router works also on the application level and understands the ftp commands. When it sees the "PORT" command in the control connection, it translates the internal address to the external and adds a temporary record to the firewall table.

It's funny, but my simple cheap WiFi all-in-one box at home does the job when the ftp commands are upper cased and ignores it when it lowercased.

Good article about the subject here:

Sunday, October 25, 2009

New bakery

Tried a bit of a Donut.
OMG, it's so slow!

Monday, October 5, 2009

Evil is coming!

It seems google made those smart guys who were making Android run on a number of different devices to remove their development .
I wonder how stupid those big corporations could be, not understanding how easily they can loose everything created in such hard work.
Now my respect to google has dropped down below the ground zero.

I'm not going to buy products from a company I don't respect.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Ten Android applications I can't live without.

1. Robert.Developer's RMaps
Shows maps from different sources, and what most important, from loaded images you create using your desktop PC and are stored in sql db. Does not support tracking (yet!).

2. LYSESOFT's AndExplorer and AndFTP
Best file manager. Still missed many features, but it's a very high quality application. And an FTP client. I wonder, why they are not in a single application, but in my chart they share the same row.

3. egg 'n stone's CalWidget
It's a widget to show your current agenda from the calendar on the home screen.

4. Mike DG's dg QuickCut
It makes short cut to the dug activities of other applications. Thank to this shortcut creator you don't need anymore applications made just to replace already integrated functionality, such as WiFi on/off, Battery status.

5. Fognl's Greed (Lite)
Best RSS reader I found. It kinda slow, but allows me read the feeds I have collected in my Google Reader account.

6. EStrongs File Explorer
It lets you to transfer files to and fro the computers on your local network using the SMB (NetBIOS) protocol.

7. Meebo IM
Multiprotocol IM client. It not perfect, but it works fine.

8. zx128's AppManager
Allows you quickly uninstall an application. Feature I miss - add my application rating to the Android Market.

9. Kenny Root and Jeffrey Sharkey's ConnectBot
Excellent Local/Telnet/SSH terminal emulator.

10. farproc's Wifi Analyzer
Not for everyday use, but it allows you to choose a best channel for your access point.

There are some more applications I use everyday, but they have more defects and problems, so I'm still loking to something better to replace them.

Telnet to Android

Seems newest version of Android system allows to connect to it from outside via WiFi. I tried before and did not succeed.
Now I ran a telnet daemon at my phone and connected to it from my PC using putty.
Practically it can not be used because it slow as hell. Don't know why.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Windows Device Manger extension

To see all old forgotten drivers in windows Device Manager (devmgmt.msc), set the following environment variable prior to run:

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

then run devmgmt.msc and select "Show hidden devices" in the menu.


Useful site http://www.nirsoft.net/, in particular it has an utility to view USB drivers and devices.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Android, latest report

Thanks to the great job the guys at xda-development, the latest build (last time it was September 19) works stable.
The change I made in rootfs.img is not necessary anymore - swap file is created in ramzsswap.
Two serious problems still exist:
1. An attempt to turn off the WiFi after it actively used (and probably when the swap file is in use) leads to total system hang.
2. Sometimes, there is no audio in phone calls.

Did not mention, the camera and bluetooth do not work at all. Hopefully they will fix that as well.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Samba server setup

Micro HOWTO.

1. Install package "samba"
2. Edit /etc/samba/smb.conf
3. In [global] add "security = share" if you want access to everyone
4. Add a section for each share by an example in the file
5. Section [homes] for autocreation a share by username if it exist in the system
6. smbpasswd creates a copy of user password. The new password must be entered and be the same as the system password.
7. Restart daemon /etc/init.d restart
8. Use testparm to monitor effective parameters

Crapy piece of circuit

Great f@^!~& DELL notebook become completely dead on 10th day of its life.
A rule - don't buy branded stuff, you'll be punished.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

OpenVPN

After a while (some time of not using), the OpenVPN server broke down.
The secured connection istablishes, but IP does not go.

I guess, the problem in the IP routing. I don't know what I did, but after server rebooted, the connection start working.

The routing table on the server looks as below:

C:>route print 10.8*

IPv4 Route Table
===========================================================================
Interface List
0x1 ........................... MS TCP Loopback interface
0x2 ...00 ff 3d 7b 61 e5 ...... TAP-Win32 Adapter V8
0x10004 ...00 13 72 69 2d 0c ...... Broadcom BCM5708C NetXtreme II GigE (NDIS VBD Client)
===========================================================================
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric
10.8.0.0 255.255.255.252 10.8.0.1 10.8.0.1 30
10.8.0.0 255.255.255.0 10.8.0.2 10.8.0.1 1
10.8.0.1 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 30
Default Gateway: 10.0.0.1
===========================================================================
Persistent Routes:
None


There are still questions for me. Why routing to 10.8.0.0 via two gateways - 10.8.0.1 and 10.8.0.2 ?
10.8.0.1 - is the address of the TAP IP interface, but what is 10.8.0.2 then?
The address of the "modem pool"?

Same way, on the client the interface address 10.8.0.6, but 10.8.0.5 - P-t-P - what's that?

Good instructions about setting OpenVPN up are located here:
http://www.runpcrun.com/howtoopenvpn


And don't forget, when you want to connect a machine behind the server it has to have route to the 10.8.0.0 network as well.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Android

this drives me crazy. new build does not work and so unstable.
even worse, the old version works bad after i restore it back

Monday, September 7, 2009

Output jack slim

Put a new build of Android, connected headphones - audio output works.
Apparently it worked before.
But I did not know the difference: the output starts not instantly when you put the jack in, but when the media process starts to play a new song. It checks the connector in the begining of the playback.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

How to put java games on Samsung cell phone A737

Little more than a year has passed and I'm finally able to run java apps on Samsung A737 cell phone.
It not because I spent whole year to figure out, but I just got an USB cable on hand.
The procedure is as follows:
First you need to set the device in the Qualicomm USB mode. There are a lot of info how to do that on the internet. Try to deal *#0523#
Second you need a software, called QPST. It allows you access to phone's file system.
Third, make a .jad file for each .jar file. And you don't have to sign the jar, it's not necessary.
Put the jar/jad pair to a separate folder in /Media/Games
Then you need to backup the system database. Copy /DB2/phonedb/backupDB/PHONEDB.00
to a PC folder. (If something goes wrong, the phone will be probably dead, and restoring the DB is your only way)
Delete the file, then boot the phone.
If everything goes smooth, your application will appear in the UI.


http://forums.mobiledia.com/topic65182-0-asc-20.html

Monday, August 3, 2009

separate explorer

IE7+ does not prevent to open the Window Explorer as a different user as I thoght. Actually, it does, but you can use the "/separate" option of explorer.exe to launch it as another user in a different process.

The only problem, you can't open a particular resource or folder that way.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Feature device

If I choose a new phone, I'd pick this:

HTC Fuze



http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=1644
http://www.htc.com/us/product/htcfuze/specification.html

It has same display size - 2.8", but VGA resolution
and the CPU 528MHZ (Kaiser has only 400MHz)

The only question , does the touch screen work with a stylus
or only with finger.

Will see what will be available when I actually want to buy something new.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

IIS redirection parameters

When you need a redirection from one URL to another
the IIS let you keep the resource name and parameters,
as described in this article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313074


The parameters are:
$SThe $S variable passes the matched suffix of the requested URL. The matched suffix is the portion of the original URL that remains after the redirected URL is substituted. The server automatically performs this suffix substitution. The $S variable is used only in combination with other variables.If /Scripts is redirected to /NewScripts and the original request is for /Scripts/Program.exe, the suffix is /Program.exe.
$PThe $P variable passes the parameters in the original URL without the question mark that is used to specify the beginning of the query string.If the original URL is /Scripts/MyScript.asp?number=1, the string "number=1" is mapped into the destination URL.
$QThe $Q variable passes the full query string (the question mark and the parameters) from the original URL.If the original URL is /Scripts/MyScript.asp?number=1, the string "?number=1" is mapped into the destination URL.
$VThe $V variable passes the requested URL, without the server name.If the original URL is /Myserver/Scripts/MyScript.asp, the string "/Scripts/MyScript.asp" is mapped into the destination URL.
$0 through $9The variables $0 through $9 pass the portion of the requested URL that matches the indicated wildcard.
!Do not redirect. Use this variable to prevent redirecting a folder or an individual file.

Don't forget to make sure the "exact redirection" check box is on!

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Exchange health test

In order to run the MS Exchange Best Practices Analyzer, the network interface which address is resolved from the exchange server name has to have File Sharing enabled. Also the Remote Registry service is required to be started.

Scanner OFF

TortoiseSVN daemon scans the hard drive all the time. It can be turned off. Go settings->Icon Overlays.
Set Status cache to "Shell", it will prevent scanning recursively. Apparently, the icon's sign will be shown upon the fact of changes without scanning.
Or set to "None" to disable scanning at all (and showing the icon status signs as well).
Also you can fill the Exclude and Include path boxes to tell exactly folders to scan rather than scan the entire hard drive.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

case fan cooling

Adding a case fan to an AMD Athlon 2400+ computer lowed the CPU temp from 44C to 34C.

64bit os and 32bit ISAPI

Add Enable32BitAppOnWin64 boolean property to site's metabase object.

Monday, April 6, 2009

dns

Hosting providers faced us to change the server IP address, and made also changes in the domain zone they do not posses, speaking of that as their primary duty. Of course those changes were not globally acknowledged. What did they think in the first place I still want to know.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

M$ vista x64 and outlook 2003

If Outlook 2003 does not work right with the profile it has created, need to setup your own profiles. But 64 bit vista hides the 32 bit outlook's "Mail" control panel's item. Look it under special "32 bit" icon in the control panel.

windows mobile glith

If windows mobile starts doing glitches, does not play sound on alarms for an instance, give a try to pmClean (http://pmclean.en.softonic.com/pocketpc) utility. It will remove all the junk from the notification queue. It empties the PIE temp folders as well.

Friday, March 27, 2009

pool

The own thread pool implementation was not necessary, IIS 6 does it itself good. MSXML has two version of DOMDocument, rental threaded and free threaded. It does not mean that one is an STA, and the other is an MTA, because they both marked as "Both" in the registry. Apparently, the second one just thread-safe and allows to work with it from different threads.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The leased cable internet IP changed, again. Firewall's log shows a lot of connections attempts to the port 53. I got an address which previously belonged to a name server?

Monday, March 23, 2009

Don't see any improvements in Google mobile maps v3.0.0.12 compared to v2, except it uses too small, almost unreadable font. Is it a bug or not, don't know. Removing.

DNS

DNS registrar (MyDomain) says to change the domain's name servers from ISP's to theirs nothing else necessary except add them into the account profile. Who then will remove the zone from the ISP's name servers?

ISP added a wildcard record, allowing anything as third level domain. Before, the refused to do so, saying it's technically impossible. Liars. Something changed.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Refresh partition info

If you changed the partition table using the fdisk utility, you don't need to reboot the machine. Just enough is to run the partprobe utility from the "parted" package.

Iris browser

Tried a fresh version 1.1.4 of this new web browser for windows mobile. Firs thing - the keys shortcuts now work, but not always, sometimes the application just does not response when I pressss the keys. It seems nobody tested the software using only hardware buttons (and sadly, that's true for almost everything), it better works when I use the touchscreen. Another bad thing is - it constantly eats up to 50 percents of the CPU resources, even when it doing nothing. So it can't be usedlong whn the device works on battery. Work with zoom features made badly. It almost copied the feathure from PIE, it has same modes: "desktop" , "mobile", "column". Although I put the zoom in/out to the hardware keys, work with it a way too hard. Further, there is no switching between the mouse cursor mode and the scrolling mode. Actually, there is no the dedicated scrolliing mode at all. But not everything bad, there are good things as well. First of all - it multidocument application. Opened html pages still called "tabs", but there is no actually such UI feature. The list of opened pages could be accessed from the menu. Second - the rendering itself is splendid. The webkit engine on which the application based, really does the job. But aterall I still can not make this browser my favorite. There are too much improvements has to be made.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

What will happen with all those new-fashioned netbooks industries when M$ stops licensing Windows XP?

debian crashes the hard drive

On my home server which I built on an old laptop the hard drive constantly made some noises. Sad thing it's the hard drive head's parking noise. Debian parks the heads every few seconds. smartmon-tools shows, the hard drive was almost at the death door. To tell the hdparm turn off the aggressive power saving behaviour, using the following command: hdparm -B 254 /dev/hda
The noise has ceased. But I still don't know why the system access the HD so often.

mobile client for blogging

Let's take all advantages from the mobile device. That's mean to put notes in a place I can read from everywhere and everytime. So, that a blog is invented for. About client software. I tried TravelerBlogger (TBlog) It did not even start. moBlog seems better, but the interface is not quite ripe, it does not memorize last input and a lot of thing I have to do each time from the scratch. Also it does not support hardware buttons. But still, let's give it a try.

js context

Yesterday Chris encounter an problem which appears only in FF3 (what's a garbage!), when visibility shows up a table-table it appears dead and does not respond to any user action.
Digging out I found the problem was in executing a text stored script in the window context.
I have to execute script using the eval.call() method. But a variable created inside that text script can not be accessed in the global scope, only as window's data member.
Alvin pointed me to this http://piecesofrakesh.blogspot.com/2008/10/understanding-eval-scope-spoiler-its.html
It seems this ground is very unsteady and I should watch out.