ASUS Transformer TF101 update 8.6.5.13 US for CWM + Root
That title makes sense if you follow the xda-developers forums 
Anyhow, I have a Transformer Android tablet and there was an update today. It’s pretty cool; includes a kickass note taking app.
I use clockworkmod recovery and my tablet is rooted. This means in addition to the awesome things I get from root access (the tablet dispenses candy bars, I swear) I cannot apply the official upgrades. Why not? They’ll remove my root access.
So when a release is updated some brave soul must step up and modify that update to work on our rooted tablets. This time, I am that brave dummy.
So, if you have an ASUS Transformer TF101 US on stock firmware version 8.6.5.9, use Clockworkmod, and are rooted, then I have an update for you here:
http://bellybuttonporn.com/transformer/kwt-cwm-8.6.5.13-proper.zip
Titanium Backup and CyanogenMod7: Got a problem?
I’ve run into this and from my searching it seems a few others have too.
Here’s the scenario: You’re running CyanogenMod 7 on your phone and you decide to try out a different ROM. You use Titanium Backup to save all your apps and data only to find that once you’re on the new ROM a lot of data doesn’t seem to stick around. Titanium reports that it’s successfully restored the data — and some of it really has been restored — but lots of data is missing. It’s restored to the default value from when you first installed the app.
Now here’s what’s really going on.
Titanium is indeed restoring your data. It just makes sure the app isn’t running and copies all of the database and prefs setting files into its data directory. No magic. That’s all it does and that’s all it needs to do. When your app starts up (if it’s coded well) it will check the integrity of its database files. If they are corrupt it will probably delete them and start over from scratch. Not exactly optimal, but at least the app can still run, right? Well that’s what’s happening here. Your app thinks its database file is corrupt.
CyanogenMod 7 uses a newer version of sqlite than other ROMs. (sqlite is the database engine underpinning android’s apps). This version introduces a new journaling method, the write-ahead-log, abbreviated wal for short. There’s a variety of technical benefits to using wal but that discussion doesn’t really impact our issue. Our issue is that the older version of sqlite on other ROMs doesn’t understand wal, so thinks your databases are corrupt. Bam, bye-bye data!
You can attempt this fix in one of two places. You can either fix the database files before you back them up, or after you restore them. In terms of having the right version of sqlite3 available, it’s probably best to try this before you back up your apps.
This fix assumes a few things. First, you have root. If you’re messing with CM7 and Titanium Backup you already have root. Not a problem. Second, you have busybox installed. Again, not a problem since Titanium requires busybox (and even installs it for you). Third, you have to have a sqlite3 binary somewhere on your phone. If your ROM doesn’t (some don’t for some reason) include it, you’re not screwed. I *think* Titanium will detect this and copy a binary to your phone when you click the “Problems?” button. If that’s not the case, there may be other copies of sqlite3 on your phone you can use. Open up a terminal, buddy, you’re goin in.
Find an sqlite3 binary:
find / -name sqlite3
This will locate sqlite3 for you, if it’s on your phone. Once you find it, (mine was in /system/xbin/, i.e. preinstalled in the ROM), make sure it’s new enough to understand wal.
/path/to/sqlite3 --version
If you get something 3.7.0 or higher, you’re in luck. If not, hopefully you found other sqlite3′s you can try. This is why it’s a good idea to do this BEFORE backing your apps up and flashing a new ROM. If your ROM has wal, its copy of sqlite3 does too.
I hesitate to call this a script, so here’s the command to run:
find /data/data/ -regex '.*databases/[^-]*' -exec /path/to/sqlite3 {} 'PRAGMA journal_mode=delete;' \;
Again, run this in a terminal. And yes, you do need to be root. What this is doing is going through all of the database files stored by your apps and setting them to the old journal_mode. You will get errors that certain files ending in -wal or -shm don’t exist. Don’t worry about those. When sqlite3 changes the journal_mode back to delete it will get rid of the -wal and -shm files automatically; that confuses find but doesn’t hurt anything. If an app is running during the process we won’t be able to open and update its database files. So make sure to kill them all from the Applications menu (or your task killer if you still have one of those around).
IMHO the best time to do this is on your old ROM (e.g. CM7) before doing the Titanium Backup. If you’ve already flashed to the new ROM and you’re stuck, then you can try running the command immediately after restoring everything in Titanium Backup. If you mess something up try not to panic; Titanium still has your data safely backed up. You can try again.
Leave a comment to tell everyone if this worked for you.
06.15.10Weigh In
I’m working on a weight-tracking app for android.
You can play with what I have so far by downloading the apk file here and installing it:
Scan with your phone's barcode scanner
So far you just enter how much you weigh. It keeps track of when you weigh yourself and computes a running average. This way you can weigh yourself as often (or not often) as you like and it will produce a nice stable representation of your weight without the daily ups and downs. More features to come.
04.22.10Fantasy Fantasy Sports League
Quick product idea:
A fantasy-fantasy sports league, aka meta fantasy sports. The idea is that instead of drafting guys who play sports, you draft guys who play fantasy sports. So if your buddies are always doing fantasy football, fantasy baseball, and fantasy curling, you can draft them for your fantasy fantasy league. They do well, you do well. They suck, you trade ‘em away.
qqrr.it POC
I cobbled together a POC for my QR-code generating site.
To use it, make an image url like so:
http://qqrr.it/<whatever you want goes here>
e.g.
http://qqrr.it/http://bellybuttonporn.com
Splat!
TODO:
- Talk about security. What sort of escaping do I need to do? How likely is this to be abused?
- an actual index for the site. It’ll have some cute examples and google ads. Lots of google ads.
- make it so you don’t have to use the /q/ in the url.
- add other features as 1-letter subdirectories, e.g. /b/ would make a “big” splat.
- Make the sizing smart. e.g. guess based on the length of the supplied string how big to make the splat.
Update March 22nd: Fixed a couple things. Added the home page. Try it out: http://qqrr.it/