Monthly Archives: August 2009

Android: Push connection to Exchange

Posted by on August 31, 2009 No comments

Once you have been able to root your HTC phone you will be able to enjoy enterprise WIFI connectivity (such as 802.1X / WPA) and with it, you want to obviously connect to your Exchange server.

In my previous post I mentioned that rooting your HTC will result in loosing ActiveSync. But with TouchDown from NitroDesk you get an Exchange client being able to receive push notifications, which worked faster in my tests on the HTC vs. my Entourage and Outlook clients.

TouchDown provides full ActiveSync support, the ability to instantly and automatically synchronize changes made to the Exchange Personal address book into the Android phone book, and support for setting peak hours to specify when to automatically check for changes to Exchange data. A must have for any Android user.



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South African HTC Dream Hacked

Posted by on August 29, 2009 7 comments

In pursuit of happiness (and obviously a good phone), I got the HTC Dream (also called G1) on my recent Europe trip. Although HTC recently released firmware 1.5 (code-named “Cupcake”), it still lacks a number of features.

WARNING: I will only give you hints on how to root / flash your phone. I suggest that you visit the XDA developers forum to get a detailed understanding of what needs to be done.

I was not able to do the below with a South African (MTN) 1.5 flashed phone. I was able to do this however with an original MTN / HTC firmware 1.1 phone – so better hurry to get one of those.

Some more notes and WARNINGS: The original HTC firmware comes with ActiveSync for Exchange. After flashing to Cyanogen-ROM, you WILL NOT have ActiveSync anymore, but you can purchase TouchDown, a proper Exchange client for Android. I had TouchDown run in parallel with Entourage for Mac and Outlook 2007 on the same wireless network, and TouchDown got messages sooner than the Entourage-/Outlook-versions.

With the below, you will gain however: full root access, be able to replace that fugly MTN boot screen, be able to install applications onto your SD-card (please use a class-6 card – I am using a Transcend class-6 16GB microsd card) and be able to use some features only available in the upcoming Donut release (such as WPA-enterprise features).

Quicksteps to root:

  • WARNING: If you mess up your phone / brick it, this is your problem. If you do proper research, read up, you will not mess this up. I will also not help you, read the XDA-forum – all the info is there.
  • Download the android-sdk (there are Linux, Windows and Mac versions). I use the Mac-version which works perfect.
  • Download fastboot (there is also fastboot-mac)
  • Verify that you really have a HTC dream with a 32B PVT board. All South African phones should be of that version. Power down the phone, press CAMERA-button + POWER.
  • Get CM-recovery-1.4. Put your phone into fastboot (CAMERA + POWER – it should say Fastboot-USB), then from your PC/MAC call fastboot boot cm-recovery-1.4.img.
  • Your phone will boot into recovery mode. Make sure that you have a 1GB sdcard in your phone and from the recovery options perform a nandbackup. If you have warranty issues, you will always be able to restore to the original phone settings.
  • The next few steps require boots in between. Follow detailed instructions on the XDA-forum to understand what each step does.
  • Flash cm-recovery.zip via the recovery mode
  • Flash the latest radio-image via recovery mode (at this point in time this is ota-radio-2_22_19_26I)
  • Flash HardSPL / DangerSPL
  • Flash latest Cyanogen
  • Partition your sdcard (WARNING: Don’t partition the same card you did a backup to – you will lose all data!!!). Follow instructions here.
  • CONGRATS: You have a better phone!
  • To get rid off the fugly MTN-boot screen, you will need to do a fastboot flash splash1 [rgb-image]

I chose the Cyanogen ROM, as it is the most active developed, boots and runs lightning fast and includes already some Donut features.

I got a few confirmations, that people managed to follow this guide with good success

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Android: The development SDK

Posted by on August 29, 2009 No comments

If you have an Android phone such as the HTC Dream and you have not rooted the phone AND installed the development SDK (just for super-cool geek factor and some tweaking), then stop reading.

The usage of the Android SDK will work on any Android phone without the need of rooting. Get yourself the SDK, then enable development mode on your phone (via Settings -> Applications -> Development -> USB debugging). You can leave USB debugging on, it does not negatively affect performance of the phone.

After connecting via USB, switch into the “tools”-folder of the SDK and you can do the following:

  • ./adb devices – will show you if an Android phone is connected
  • ./adb shell – will open a remote/telnet shell on the phone where you can do your normal Unix stuff
  • fastboot (downloaded separately) allows you to flash/reboot the phone (your phone needs to be in Fastboot USB-mode via CAMERA+POWER)

One of the cool features DDM – Dalvik Debug Monitor, which you invoke via ./ddms:

You will be able to debug processes as well as display device information remotely. But once you hit CTRL-S, you will be able to take remote screenshots from your device – like so:

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MTN: Fuck you – AGAIN!

Posted by on August 28, 2009 No comments

The Most Terrible Network manages to really piss off customers – like me! This morning I realised that my service is suspended! Waiting for the call-centre (a good 30 minutes until someone picks up the phone) I get told that the service is suspended because I reached my credit limit. Received no notification about a lock and call-centre is not able to give me any info as the system is down.

Line will be “probably” restored in the next day or two, but certainly by Monday. Time to port (which I can not do, because MTN’s RICA service is also down).

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The Friday Picture: YMCA

Posted by on August 28, 2009 No comments

The Friday Picture will provide you with inspirational and (de)motiviational guidance to make the approaching weekend so much more appealing:

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OS X: Snow Leopard is coming – get it for USD 30

Posted by on August 26, 2009 No comments

Head over to MacMall.com before 28th August and get Snow Leopard for USD 24.99 (with shipping to South Africa for USD 30.05).

Snow Leopard will be released on 28th August and currently there is no official word from Core (the South African Apple distributor) when Snow Leopard will be available and how much it will cost. Rumors indicate a local release around middle of September and you will certainly not be able to get your copy for under ZAR 250,00.

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