Tag Archives: android

Ancient Android root attempts on a chip RockChip tablet

Hello there! I’ve probably mentioned earlier that I’ve got two cheap tablets, and I got to root one of them. At least I was able to update it to 2.3 (I guess, don’t remember) with the Uberdroid distro image. Well, the other one has a RockChip chipset, and that’s quite harder to do, since z4root couldn’t trick it. I’m trying some other root methods, but for now, no success.

If after these new sideload attempts I’m still not successful… well, I’ll try some ADB methods with Windows applications. But that would be the last resort. Anyway, I’m playing a lot of music and taking care of pets/home when not at work, so, not much time to write and create new code. Let’s see how it goes. 🙂

Don’t break the owl

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Well, I’m struggling to create original content for the blog, but I’m doing my best to write every day (okay, not my best, it’s not the plan to kill myself for it… for now :). Seinfeld’s “Don’t break the chain” is a nice perseverance exercise, and here I am, trying not to break it.

I’ve also been dedicating at least a lesson everyday on Duolingo, and its awesome Android app. HabitRPG says I’m “green” with a score of 1.6 at it, so I guess it’s been ok. Plan to finish the English module, which I’m halfway through, and then starting a different language (perhaps German or even Spanish, to improve some of my beginner level). I highly recommend it if you’re interested in studying new languages, since it can evaluate some of your spelling (at the Web app), has reminders to bug you to study everyday (and avoid hurting the owl’s feelings) and is gamified, so you can actually compete with friends while studying. 🙂

I’ll put some subjects at my Keep so I don’t need to just write about something on the spot. I can do it, but lacks quality… anyway, baba, the chain lives to see another day.

Blogging from my ancient Android tablet

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Hey there, this is the first post I’m attempting to deliver from one of my cheap tablets (this one being written from an Eyo net-tab, I guess, the name may vary, also looks nothing like the picture), through the amazing WordPress app. I’m typing at one of those mini USB keyboards residing on an imitation leather cover, and I must say that it’s not that bad…

Lately I’ve been playing with some JavaScript engine called JAWS, and a game is starting to take some form. >:) It’s being hard to blog, sometimes due to lazyness, other times to being quite busy (thank HabitRPG for that), but I’m trying… trust me! 🙂

Also been using Hibernate at a Java SE application, and I can’t say bad things about it (aside reproducing some JPA bugs with floating point numbers at MySQL, but nothing directly related to Hibernate), in fact, it indeed made my life much easier with the Netbeans plugin that does all the “low-level” SQL work leaving you with ready-to-use objects from database tables, and that’s simply wonderful! No need to re-invent the wheel everytime you start a new application. This way I can focus more at UI level programming and doing a much more polished job.

For tonight, that’s it. I’ll be back later.

PS.: The WordPress app sucks at dealing with links at edit level ~~I’ll put the text links later.~~

Update: even the wordpress admin panel is not hanling links correctly at WYSIWYG editor, had to place links directly into the post’s HTML.

HabitRPG, chain mail GTD

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The last couple of days have been quite productive, mostly to a new kind of motivation, that came in form of achievements on a gamified GTD task manager. I’m talking about HabitRPG, a website/Chrome addon/Android app that rewards your character with gold coins and experience points at every completed task. I’ve rushed in and inserted most of my “expected” tasks, which can be categorized as Habits, Dailies and ToDos.

It can be a little confusing (and sometimes even buggy) at first, but there’s planty of help around a small but vibrant community. I’ll keep using it, it’s been a nice experience so far and I think it only gets better. 🙂

Playing with some ChromeCast alternative

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It’s no news that I’ve put together quite some time ago a spare desktop to use as media center. No wonder also that it runs XBMCbuntu quite smoothly. 🙂 It’s also VERY nice to be able to control the whole media experience through any browser or Android device that’s in the same network, so I can put it to play media without even looking at it.

The last couple of weeks (after ChromeCast launch), I saw many many applications attemping to integrate with (despite the unstable API) and even completely emulate it! So, since I don’t have access to one of these HDMI-dongle wonders, I’ve decided to put LeapCast to work and emulate my own ChromeCast setup! 🙂

First of all, it needs a Linux setup that runs google-chrome, which the current XBMCbuntu… doesn’t. In fact, even if a simple call to update-manager (and a bit of patience) did the trick, I still had plenty of NVidia driver madness to control after the reboot (so, if you’re not up to trouble, install an up-to-date Ubuntu and XBMC from it).

Installed LeapCast and Chrome, created a simple shell script to be able to log and called it from a nifty system function at ~/.xbmc/userdata/autoexec.py. Worked like a charm (despite calling LeapCast with –fullscreen, it’s not using it all. Perhaps the X calls are a bit odd from XBMC…) and the device advertised itself once I opened the Youtube app at my Nexus phone. 🙂

Of course XBMC has its own Youtube addon, which works wonders and I love it very much, this results in even less exercise. 😀 Ready to become the couch zombie we all aspire to!