Mobility Digest » XDA-Developers

XDA to Go Dark on Jan 18th at 8:00am…..

Jim Szymanski — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:30:23 +0000

…but not for long. Looks like the good folks at XDA Developers have decided to take a stand on SOPA and PIPA, so will join other sites and go off the air at 8:00am on January 18th. The site will remain down until 8:00pm the same day, or until they have received 50,000 pledges from Users to contact their Senator or Congressman to voice their opposition.

So– beginning at 8AM ET on January 18th, the xda-developers.com domain WILL go dark. When you come to the site, you will see links to information about SOPA and the damaging impact it will have on the free Internet. Visitors from the United States will also see a link to an online pledge. Users who choose to sign their name to the pledge are agreeing simply to contact their local Senator or Representative (via phone or email) and politely voice their opposition to the bills. Once 50,000 people have made the pledge, XDA will go back up.

You can read the full statement here. Not sure where you stand on this issue but thought it would be good to spread the word.

Starbucks Mischief

Doug Simmons — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:57:45 +0000

Had a little fun in Starbucks with some software you sure won’t find on the App Store, DroidSheep, FaceSniff and WifiKill.

I think you need some sort of personality disorder to fully appreciate them, but they do have some nerd value so let’s take them for a spin. To spare you my signature longwindedness I’ll use pictures this time:

Signal bars are for sissies:

Seems Google pulled it from the market and made it super difficult to find, unless you’re really clever:

The thing above the apk download is httpmon which, though less sexy, is actually useful. Note that Android had this sophisticated technology before I was even born:

I find the name offensive.

Here we go! Random URLs and numbers baby!

Starbucks patron flirting with me. “Why don’t you spoof my hotspot?” she said. Totally cheesy line, lady:

Now we’re getting somewhere. Better blur these guys out a bit. Respect the privacy:

Step this up a notch?

I wonder what “Open site” will do? Probably something underwhelming, so let’s leave it a mystery with me only pretending to tap it:

Perhaps I can sniff faster if I DOS everybody?

Nah, too uncool, won’t do that. But I tested it at home and I can tell you that it does work.

To try to hedge the negative contribution to society I may be making by posting this I’ll offer an honorable mention to Wifi Protector by Gurkedev from XDA, something that defends you from these hacking apps. Anyway, wild stuff, right? Ehh, scrolling through these pictures, maybe not so wild actually (sorry). One part of me is saying I should probably run this by the MobilityDigest legal team first but another part is noting that there’s no such thing.

A Couple Android Magic Tricks

Doug Simmons — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:54:37 +0000

Strolled through XDA just now, found a few gems worth sharing not because I think a ton of you will use them but to characterize the nerd factor Android offers. What, you’re not a nerd? Then what the hell are you doing reading a nerd blog?

In addition to many Samba clients, something that lets you get onto your Windows file network, you can also run a Samba server, letting you access your external storage in your phone from your computer over wifi as if it were a shared folder on another Windows computer. It’s called Samba Filesharing by Jimmy Chingala, it’s free on the market, and here’s the XDA post including development versions. Note that Macs can also climb onto an SMB share.

Here’s something really impressive. Viulian over at XDA has managed to get Lighttpd, PHP5 and Sqlite3 (with support for MySQL and PostgreSQL. While we already have been able to run those things using Ubuntu Linux on our Android phones without even having to flash anything, this is compiled for ARM processors, effectively turning your phone into a full-fledged LAMP, sort of. I’d love to see one of you Windows Phone badasses produce a screenshot that looks anything like this:

Wonder what would happen if I tried to host this site for an hour or so on my Nexus with this. Hmm.

Then there’s SwiFTP, which I wrote about before, an FTP server that not only is an FTP daemon, you can also access your phone not just on wifi but over the cellular air or behind some other firewall by means of a proxy server you can either run yourself if you’ve got a server or use the developer’s who’s kind enough to share his bandwidth. And here’s a solid VNC server with mouse tweaks and shortcuts, the whole nine.

That’s enough for now on servers, I think you get the point, so how about a client you won’t find elsewhere? Here’s the stock Android email client (the open source version) what has been modified to let you connect to Exchange servers without Exchange Security policy enforcement. Nobody’s recommending that you don’t support or enforce such security policies on your Exchange server, but if you don’t for whatever reason, hey, that’s your business buddy, and this is your email client.

Okay one more trick. You may know you can modify your boot animations with Android, you may know you can check out dmesg / logcat too, but did you know you can get a boot animation that scrolls through it live like a regular BIOS boot? You do now.

Doug Simmons

Artemis HD2 ROM Updated (HTC HD2) (version 64.0) (8/26)

Albert Bunn — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 01:25:25 +0000

For all our HD2 owners surfing the blog here, popular ROM author Sternas has released yet another update to his ever popular Artemis HD2 Custom ROM for HTC’s revolutionary HD2. Version 64.0 was more of a simpler performance upgrade with just a few modifications made “under the hood” for memory and performance, but still a good looking ROM packed full of useful goodies and preinstalled software, while not overdoing it. Sternas has a vast number of screenshots of the ROM that can only be described as a multitude so that you can get a pretty good idea of what Artemis HD2 looks like before you even put it on your device (I know I am personally a little “leary” sometims myself of ROM threads without screenshots). For those of you fortunate enough to still own what is arguably still the best mobile phone ever built, head on down to Sternas’s thread at XDA DEVELOPERS to learn more abut the Artemis HD2 ROM.

::AB

New Version of CR192 DESIRE ROM Available for HD2 Owners (8/19–Version 6.5.3.1.4b)

Albert Bunn — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:35:22 +0000

: CRACING’s Latest HD2 ROM Offering: The CR192 Desire ROM

While some people have thought that the Windows Mobile scene is dead, the persistent members over at XDA Developers continue to prove them wrong once again with “CRACING”’s release of the next installment to the CR192 DESIRE ROM series for HTC’s Milestone HD2 handheld. The latest version hit WUpload and Megaupload on the 19th of this month proving that the Windows Mobile ROM community is far from dead. While CRACING seems to be relatively new to the scene, the ROM’s thread looks fantastic and was brilliantly illustrated by CRACING himself. Even though CR192 has not been available even two weeks yet, it has already been recognized by a member of the forum as “one of the best roms ever” despite its relatively short three pages of feedback in the thread. CR192 Desire is the successor to the massively successful Febuary release “Vibrant GTX” ROM (available in the CR192 thread as well). While some people prefer to run Android on their HD2s, the rest of the community has spoken, and the CR192 DESIRE ROM series is the clear choice for HD2 users who want to get the most out of their handheld.

::AB

GczII Geocaching Software Updated to version .2.35.76 (7/1)

Albert Bunn — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:20:05 +0000

New Version of NICQUE's popular freeware program, GCzII is released

NICQUE, the popular author of Windows Mobile freeware released a brand new version of GczII on July 1st (version “0.2.35.76”). GczII is a popular freeware Geocaching.com client, where you can search for geocaches by Zipcode, cache name, author’s name, trackables, and of course geographical distance from your current GPS location. For those of you not familiar, Geocaching is a sport which (after registering for a free account on their website) allows you access to the coordinates for thousands and thousands of geocaches worldwide. Each geocache is a container hidden somewhere in public which can be located with the coordinates provided for it on Geocaching.com, which can get you around 10-30 feet from the “cache” (from there, GPS is too imprecise and you must use your wits to find the spoils). When you get to the cache (these can be in parks, parking lots, off a hiking trail, etc.), you can sign the logbook and if the cache is physically large enough (the size of the cache varies wildly – usually a small plastic box though), exchange small trinkets. When you get home, you also sign the log on the site.

GczII saves the user the hassle of not only needing to have a separate GPS receiver, but you also do not have to print off countless cache pages or worry about typing the coordinates just perfectly into a secondary receiver. It is a “green” solution, and also much easier.

::AB

HTC EVO 3D from Sprint $49.99 today only

Doug Smith — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:30:28 +0000

Looking to start Monday off right? Why not treat yourself to Sprint’s flagship device from HTC, the EVO 3D for $50 bucks! Wirefly just dropped the price to finish August sales strong. You can take advantage of it today only which includes a two year contract of course. In other EVO 3D good news, if you are not fearful of rooting your device, I saw that legendary ROM Chef NRGZ28 was looking for volunteers to do some testing on ROM for the EVO 3D he is working on.

Head on over to Wirefly now to take advantage of this special deal.

Install GTalk with Voice/Video, No Wifi Restriction [root]

Doug Simmons — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 19:26:03 +0000

There’s been an XDA thread for a while now with a bunch of different 2.3.4 GTalk rips with varying tweaks and installation methods, but here’s the best and easiest if you’ve got root and either Android 2.3.3 or 2.3.4, stock or custom, front cam or no front cam, just need root. Got root?

Download the highly-acclaimed [root] Talk 1.3 Installer from the market, hit the backup button just in case, then tap the button to download and install the freshest version of the default recommended package (xilard) which is both likely to work and, unlike with Apple devices, you can use it over wifi and cellular for however long it takes you to lose interest in this silly video chat thing. So silly.

Not recommended for AT&T subscribers…

HTC’s HD2 reinvents itself once more with Mango

Doug Smith — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 21:09:53 +0000

Easily the most versatile device ever created from developers standpoint has reinvented itself once. The HTC HD2 which originally came to the party dressed in Windows Mobile shed it’s clothing and wore more operating systems than any other device we can think of. Of course the Android ports are now legendary, and Ubuntu has been spotted as well. There is even a MeeGo movement on XDA trying to get some traction. But what about the fruit goodness we all have been talking about coming soon to a Windows Phone device near you? We are talking about Mango and you can add that to the list of HD2 operating systems that have been ported over.

XDA member HD2Owner is the developer for “the world’s first hd2 green mango (five languages) – DFT Mango Build 7592” This is a fully functioning ROM that even though is still in a Beta stage, has very few issues other than the MArketplace not working and HTML 5 in this build is not functional. Check out these videos and see for yourself:

So what does Microsoft have to say about some “enthusiastic” developers getting their hands on the Mango Build and porting it over to the HD2?:

“We say tinker away with Mango and enjoy the juice,” Microsoft spokesman Bill Cox said in a statement to AllThingsD. “But beware the fine print — unlocking phones may void your warranty.”

Microsoft has always said that Mango would be a free update to all existing Windows Phones as soon as it was officially released after being tested. This is a 180 from the days long past when Windows Mobile ports were always catching heat on XDA. Maybe even a glimmer of hope in some peoples eyes who would see the Redmond giant in a far less positive light. Regardless, everyone agrees that making mango available to developers will only help Microsoft come back to the party and contend with the Android Kool Aid drinkers as well as iPhone (cough) fan boys.

While it was necessary to part with my beloved T9391, it still has a place etched my heart. For all you current HD2 owners, enjoy the power of the developer community as the HD2 continues to reinvent itself over and over again.

[Read: XDA via WMPU & AllThingsD]

CM 7.1.0 Packing 2.3.4 About to Hit

Doug Simmons — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 22:08:36 +0000

So Google dropped Android 2.3.4 on stock Nexus S owners. Those not fitting that description have been SOL until the fairly near future as I just scored and flashed me a CM 7.1.0 / Android 2.3.4 “kang” nightly floating hereabouts (I didn’t even know what kang was – means super duper unofficial, so a super duper unofficial unofficial of an unofficial thing in this particular case).

Wifi doesn’t work but hey man it’s 2.3.4 and it’s CyanogenMOD all right so my guess is that all the thirty something CM-loving devices will get hit with a less buggy and unofficial 7.1.0 / 2.3.4 in a day or two. Brace yourselves bitches.