Jan07

Tech hell

by admin on January 7th, 2012 at 03:07
Posted In: Hardware, HTPC, Hardware, LAN, HTPC, MediaPortal, Software

Christmas this year was one big tech breakdown in the Berg home :-(

Already in December, the antenna signal deteriorated and DVB-T units got all “pixly”. Colleague Niklas (the antenna guy) helped me out by swapping the aerial for a new one I bought, but the measuring  equipment handy was only showing actual signal power and not signal quality so it had to be a best effort. Pros: Reception did improve for a period of time, and I got rid of the old analogue monster antenna and the ugly box that joined the two antennas. However, signal wasn’t significantly better and after a while it again it fell below the acceptable levels. Lowering the aerial on the antenna pole didn’t help.

The USB harddisk to the Wii was unreachable and started making a very frightening click sound. I have given away all physical Wii games but one, so the standard offering of games got *really* limited. LEGO Indiana Jones, which I naturally just have to hack the Wii and install USB disks. The intention was never to actually play it ;-)

Good part was I took the HiFi klubben offer for NAD speakers and the AVR-1912 (was very kindly allowed to upgrade the 1612 that was in the package). Installed the speakers (still loose cables but it’s getting there). Mmmm – NICE sound, but was also a first step on the road to hell.

The AVR-1612 channelled the  HDMI in nicely to the HDMI connected TV, but installing the AVR-1912 made the screen blank out at the point the Windows 7 normally welcome you. It worked fine in Safemode and with the ATI drivers removed. Playing with it, made me reboot the machine by pressing and holding the the power button quite a few times, and suddenly in the process, the web access was gone (general IP fine but web browsing was dead) and the MySQL part of MediaPortal was also dead. The sound settings was indicated that no speakers were connected to the HD sound port in the HDMI cable.

So basically no TV in the entire house at this point in time, HTPC (also media repository) was seriously crippled and with drivers installed it couldn’t show any picture. I guess this was rock bottom. (Edit: Little did I know ;-)

Took the indoor DVB-T antenna from the bedroom (where we have no central antenna), disconnected the external aerial and replaced it with the indoor one. So, killed the bedroom TV but won the kitchen TV by this move, and have fair signal in the rest of the central antenna system. Kitchen TV is 14″, no timeshift, no web server and no nothing. It’s almost criminally simplified, but working!

Secondly, the upstairs PC connected to the projector had a MediaPortal installation, but for some reason I installed that as a media client only, and not with it’s own TV server, even if the machine has a TV card and access to the central antenna. I am not aware of a way that you can add the TV server without installing the system again, so I uninstalled the MP (small uninstall – keeping settings and data) and reinstalled it with the server enabled. Server was there and configurable in it’s setting application, TV was an option in the media client. Things is, it didn’t work and there was no TV option in the clients configuration. So, I had to really remove the MP *totally* and reinstall it.  Generating new thumbnails for all pictures and updating the databases for music and films takes so long just the machines part, and the manual fixes needed for music and films is massive! As this PC is connected to the central antenna, I now had a second TV operational. This one has timeshift and full media portal. Where this strange real time Tv concept actually works.

Attached the Wii USB disk to the computer. Worked no problems. Attaching it to the Wii again it fired up nicely. I guess it was on sympathy strike with the other hardware. Don’t do that to me again, please!

Installed an antenna splitter from the indoor antenna, pulled a cable to the bedroom and installed a permanent cabled access to that room. The indoor antenna was also placed in a more semi-permanent manner. It can be like that for some time with no problem. TV3 now working

Back to the HTPC. Removing Avast and drivers for the LAN card totally, seems to have cured the lack of web access. Screen still black, and I presented my case in one of the many fora for owners. Explored on and eventually found that there is a total mess in the communication between the DENON unit and the ATI card. Not a very good combination. It’s not really easy as obviously pointing at one being the single source of error, but nVidia cards are said to work which gives you some indication. I was able to “solve it” by pressing windows + p (the projector settings) and blindly making a selection of another screen configuration. Not always but quite often (mind: now “always” and we all understand the WAF of “working sometimes”) this gives the picture back.

I guess I am now landing in a new stable situation. Need to re-install Media Portal on the HTPC (basically from scratch) and the other issues I still have are both related to the HDMI between the DENON unit and the HTPC. I do want screen to start when HTPC is selected  without some Win + P fiddling, and the sound still doesn’t work. It DID work at one occasion (using Realtek drivers and not the ATI ones) and this was when I had the “projector setting” to mirror the screen on the projector (where it identified itself as unit 1 and 2 on the same screen). The error message was gone but I still didn’t get any sound from the HTPC.

So, more work to do and I do need someone to look at the antenna system for me!

Edit: The HTPC refused to boot. The kitchen TV refuse to show some of the channels. Rock bottom my ass! Dante taught me there are different levels of hell and I seemingly wasn’t on the Judas level quite yet. Now I need to buy a new graphics board. FINGERS crossed I don’t also have to buy a new TV card.  Detaching the antenna for the HTPC made a few more Tv channels work on the kitchen TV.

Working:

- Upstairs PC and the projector, including Tv and everything.

- Kitchen TV

- Bedroom TV (a bit pixly but once the roof antenna is back in production, maybe this will go away).

So pending;

- Make HTPC work. Need new GFX board and picking a nVidia one would hopefully also take care of the communication with the AVR-1912.

- Re-cord the distance between antenna and the in-house system (will have to wait until spring, as crawling on the roof these days is likely lethal). The indoor antenna has drawbacks – as soon as a moped runs on the street outside, I get interference. Why mopeds???

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Dec29

Sony Ericsson X10 Mini goes Gingerbread

by admin on December 29th, 2011 at 23:32
Posted In: Operating System, Android, Hardware, Operating System

One common problem in the Android domain is that the system evolves but that the operators and hardware vendors do not follow the path of upgrades, so even using fairly fresh hardware, you are stuck with the version supplied in the purchase. The reason for this guide is that I upgraded the system software in my phone to GingerDX 021 and it refused to boot, why I had to do the stuff all over again and hence could document with previous experience of doing it before.

Please mind that with freedom comes responsibility – if you can’t handle that, buy an iPhone where Apple will ensure that you cannot do anything harmful, or at least stay on standard distributions. The below text is only for those who embrace electronic freedom, and understand that liability shifted to you once you take this step.

Android and upgrades

Two mandatory reads on the subject:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2397729,00.asp

http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphans-visualizing-a-sad-history-of-support

However, we are a lucky bunch as there are MANY people involved in the process of bringing recent edition of the OS to orphaned hardware. Sadly the system itself is fairly locked and you need low level hackers opening it up, why the tools are quite often everything but user friendly. There are guides and forums (XDA Developers being the leading one). They often tell you HOW to do things but rarely why you do each step and often the steps are very general and you need to understand quite a lot in order to succeed in following the guides.

My aim in the below is to give you an X10 Mini guide that is a bit easier. Much of the text is based on the guides from XDA Developers, especially this one.

Key part – lots of what you do can go wrong, and the part which can go really wrong is that updating the phone system software is interrupted. You have then typically “bricked” the phone, rendering it to be a useless piece of weight. Please mind that with the X10 Mini this is not really possible. It’s always possible to get out of the loop which means that you can play along heavily and be fairly risk free.

This video shows in a really good way how you can do the work.

Having said this; I TAKE NO LIABILITY IF THIS GOES WRONG! You mess with your phone on YOUR risk, not mine!

Key presses you must know

Reset the X10 Mini: Press ON/Off and menu (the button on the top, and the “square symbol” button).

Enable flash mode: Turn off the mobile. Press “back” (left arrow) and insert the USB. Please mind that you are NOT requested to turn On the phone again. If this works, the led turns green and shine with a steady green light.

Enable flash mode from hung state: Press and hold the “back” button (arrow pointing left), and then press the reset combination (on/off + menu). Release the reset combination, while still holding the “back” button and insert the USB cable. If this works, the led turns green and shine with a steady green light.

Reboot into recovery: Custom recoveries are evoked by repeatedly pressing “back” during boot.

Software you might want to have

PC Companion or SEUS – Sony Ericsson’s own stuff. You need to have it installed (one of them -either will do) as it contain the proper USB drivers. PC Companion is a bit of bloatware, containing much more than you need. back in the old days you synced the handset to the PC, but today you should do that over the air and the USB connection should only be for fiddling and possibly leeching the pictures and pushing new music to the device. (SEUS is not really published in a visible way, so you need to knowwhere to find it. A suggestion is the site of an XDA user, seus.tk )

SuperOneClick – In order to gain “root” access you need a method. This is the solution for dummies and for the experts who know better than use commands and switches if a “point and click” solution is available.

Distributions and Kernal file – Many people evolved the android system in all sorts of different direction. Some are “original ones” and some are flavours of other editions. Some of them are based on the stock ROM but some require a revised ROM.  There is no way one can say that one is better than the other and it’s a matter of taste.

If you select a distribution that need a different kernel file,you also need these files:

S1Tool – Gives some information on the system.

MSM 7227 – Based on the information from ther S1 Tool, you use this package to adjust the bootloader so that you can flash using the FlasherTool

FlasherTool - This allows you to install ROMs to the phone – either the standard one, or a custom one. The flasher tool include something Gordons Gate drivers, which you also need.

Steps to do

1) Select a distribution.

The distribution I have picked is GingerDX. It’s based on a CyganoMod version of the system, and it’s fast and stable. Pretty much what you want from a system. This part is a total jungle though. Will require a lot of forum reading. This forum is where to go for input and suggestions and it’s well over what one would normally hope to see.

New version of GingerDX (021) requires a modified Kernel, called nAa (NAa stands for Nobody At All, which is a user of the XDA forum). A safe option might be to pick up the

Installing GingerDX itself is not that difficult – the hard part is the Kernel as it requires unlocking the bootloader.

2) Root the phone

The SuperOneClick program above does this. The mobile should have the on, fully booted and you allow remote debugging. A bit of visual guide here.

Run SuperOneClick as administrator on your PC. Press the “Root” button. That’s it. There are similar “one button” applications that work for other phones. Some run on the phone itself and some on the PC. It’s also possible to do it “manually” on the PC using the ADB shell interface, if you insist on doing something the hard way.

3) Mess with the bootloader (only needed if you should update the Kernel)

Admittingly, this is the hairy part.

The S1Tool is run to tell which of the CMD files in the MSM package you shall run.

# Download and install S1, FlashTools, MSM 7227 and Gordons Gate (as you installed the Flash Tools this is in the “drivers” folder of the installation).

3.1.a) Launch the S1 application

3.1.b) Press the “Do job” button (on the right)

3.1.c) Pick up your phone and enter Flash mode (see the “key presses” section above) and insert the USB stick. The program then picks up some relevant data. key part is the SEMC SIMLock certificate. If it’s there you are good to go. Please read the details on SIM lock and stuff here. (please mind – I’m not sure what it all means even if I am well aware what SIM lock is and how it works)

3.1.d) Close the S1 tool

3.2.a) Depack the ;SM 7227 package to a folder of your choice.

3.2.b) If you, as I, had SEMC SimLock certificate, feel free to run the “msm7227_semc.cmd” as administrator (right-click and select, run as administrator). Let it do it’s work and then your done.

3.3.a) Install the Flash tool

3.3.b) Download the kernel you wish to use. In my case the nAa 08 one. Place it in the “firmware” folder of the Flash Tool Installation.

3.3.c) Install and run the Flash tool.

3.3.d) Press the Flash button. The system will ask you to put the phone in flash mode, but you already know how to do that.

In case some part of my text is unclear, please read this and this.

3) Mess with the recovery (only if you didn’t mess with the Bootloader)

As with distributions, there are several to chose from. ClockWorkMod, xRevocery and so on. I picked the CWM for you as this is the easiest installer as there is a phone program to do it.

Use the Android market to download the “ROM Manager”; There are several ones but you should pick the one that looks like a cogwheel with a hat. From it, select to install ClockWorkMod.

Many videos and guides will show it; here.

Optionally pick the xRecovery, which there seem to be even more guides for; here and here for starters.

Third option is this, which is also an application run on the phone.

Please mind that all three options require that you have a rooted phone, as was the result of step 2) above.

4) Place the distribution on the SD card.

You can either copy the distribution to the SD when it’s in the phone or take it out and insert it it an SD reader directly to the PC. Please mind that you are to copy the ZIP and place it on the SD – do NOT unpack it, as the installer will do this. As stated above, I placed the GingerDX distribution on the SD.

5) Reboot the phone into recovery

When you have the recover menu on the screen, select “Install custom ZIP” or something similar.

When done, you are done!

Welcome to the new world of a free PhoneOS that lets you do what you want with it.

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Aug18

New battery for the MIO C520

by admin on August 18th, 2011 at 18:39
Posted In: Uncategorized

image

Not that easy, but I now have a new battery in the C520. Opening involved:
* removing five rubber plugs (they sit using tape with glue on both sides on the bottom)
* removing 5 screws (small X ones)
* unsnapping the back (tricky – it’s really so that it sits really hars so that you wonder if the screws are really needed)

It’s now open. Now you need to:

* Remove the silver tape that is on top of the battery.
* Remove the battery – stuck in sticky foam to the board, use a broad knife or some good, flat tool
* Remove the speaker – there is a hook on one of the sides. Focus on the hook to get it off.
* pull out the connector to the battery.

So. Now it’s just to connect the new battery (the connector has visible metal which goes up and not towards the board) and put the stuff back. The speaker is best put back with the hook first and then you pull it so that the pins  pop into the holes on the main board.

DONE!

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Aug04

Another day, another OS revision on the X10 Mini

by admin on August 4th, 2011 at 19:59
Posted In: Operating System, Android, Operating System, Telecom

I did previously write about rooting and insalling a custom ROM on the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini.

I had trouble with

# the screen not really fading up and

# WiFi issues – not finding networks that other handsets could see.

# Updating the Gmail client from Android market didn’t work – complains of problems in the package.

# Searches on market came up dry but the same program was suggested and installing it was fine (Endomondo)

Since I did quite few user additions to it, there was not much work lost by testing something else.

A few learnings was that this RemiX10 is possibly not the most stable release of the system so I just installed GingerDX. Let’s see how that behaves. Please note that this is version 005, and there is a version 006 but as I understand it only for the X8.

First experience – It allowed be to select a number of applications I would like to batch download. Nice. But I am on 3G data on my personal “lab” subscription without flatrate data. Not so nice. I had to interrupt and set WiFi.

 

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Jul30

Hacking the MIO Moov Navman M450

by admin on July 30th, 2011 at 15:15
Posted In: Hardware, Hardware, MIO Navman

The subscription for Speedcams on my MIO Navman M450 ran out. It’s a logical model to sell the hardware at a fair profit, and then add revenue to the business by subscriptions on up-to-date maps, speedcams and points of interest. Trouble is that they sell the updates at rates of a new piece of hardware. Given the rate of development on hardware, it doesn’t make sense to pay for the upgrade when you can get a better unit for the same amount. So, the hacker in me wanted to see what options there were for seeing if I could bypass the restriction.

It seems the easiest way forward is to install another piece of software.

1) Copy the content.

Just plug it to the USB and access the content using a file manager, where you take all of the content and copy it to a safe location.

You now have two basic option, remove the old content and replace it with something else (think of this as formatting the disk of a computer, and installing Linux on it) or use the existing installation and install a parallel solution (think of this as dual boot, even if it formally is two applications on the same system booted from the same OS).

Option 1:

Delete the old content and install the new. This video on YouTube shows how it’s done (but not where to get the software).

Option 2;

Have a unit that can run more than one application.

1) “Root” the unit

The MIO MOOV Unlock found here does just that – unlocks the Windows CE. After this you have the Windows CE (ouch :P ) desktop and an icon that starts the existing MIO program (SmartST).

2) Install another software

It seems a popular choice is iGo which comes in several flavours; Primo and iGo8.

Installation guide here.

I actually managed to install both, in Swedish , with Swedish voices but it was A LOT of work to do it, and I had to pick a chose from several different packages to get it right. Key one here

General

I created two directories – one which was called Primo and one called iGO8. The base distribution I used had a smart way to share the data for the two systems so I do not need duplicate maps, poi:s and so on.

The iGo filer is the “base” where the maps are. I needed to locate language and speech files for it and then it needed the small fix in the sys.txt. I needed to define the relevant path under the folders section of it.

[folders]
app=”\My Flash Disk\iGo8″

The Primo one turned a bit more complex as I had to reference the other installation.

[folders]
sdcardpath=”\My Flash Disk”
building=”..\..\iGO8\content\building”
dem=”..\..\iGO8\content\dem”
maps=”..\..\iGO8\content\map”
poi=”..\..\iGO8\content\poi”
klmpoi=”..\..\iGO8\content\userdata\poi”

I guess I would like to change the voice and speedcam but I have a stable solution now, so I will leave it be for now.

Full giude to the sys.txt is found here.

Shortcuts

It’s naturally quite inconvenient to find the files in the file manager and open it like that (especially while driving ;-) so shortcuts are convenient.

I have two shortcuts – one for each file.

One called “Primo.lnk” which is a file residing in \Program files\Unlock\Desktop. It contains one line of text; 31#”\My Flash Disk\Primo\iGO9.exe” (The first number is length, has as separator and then the actual path enclosed by quote marks). As you see the exe in the pack I use is called igo9.exe.

One called “iG0.lnk” which is a file residing in \Program files\Unlock\Desktop. It contains one line of text; 30#”\My Flash Disk\iGO8\iGO8.exe” (The first number is length, has as separator and then the actual path enclosed by quote marks).

Points of Interest

Also found the POI Plaza when looking around. Seriously kewl!

 

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