[solved] Android Shortcut to Tethering Settings

If you are like me and tether your 3G android device to PC's several times a day, you will realise that it is a PITA to go through the menu to enable tethering each time you want to connect.

Trying to make a shortcut, was impossible, there was no link to the tethering settings page.

I found Quickteth on the market, it is a lightweight app, that requires no unsafe permissions to run!  (Lesson to learn you other android developers!)

Puts a simple shortcut on the desktop, press it and you are in your tethering settings page!

Check out Quickteth on the android market.


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Ebay mobile version sucks on Android on everything

Why do these idiots at ebay waste their time, the mobile version of their site is so crippled it makes users want to curl up in a corner and die

Don't even think you can use it to sell anything either, there is just no buttons for it - crippled.

Of course, uses can opt out and use the classic site (still not 100% on Android) but the redirect is cookie based and if you delete your cookies, you are presented with the same shit again.

The only solution is to create a bookmark www.ebay.com.au/?redirect=mobile

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Transcoding movies for Android devices using WinFF ffmpeg and Ubuntu

This is the easiest way to get the task done, it is not pretty but it should work fine.  I tried it on Ubuntu 11.04 no problems.


So I was wanting to watch some AVI files on my ZTE V9 Android device, but had to recode them into mp4 before watching.  Unfortunately the stock Ubuntu version of winff does not allow mp4 coding natively, however there is a easy workaround

Following the instructions on http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=786095, I did this:

sudo apt-get remove ffmpeg x264 libx264-dev
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential checkinstall git checkinstall libfaac-dev \
    libjack-jackd2-dev libmp3lame-dev libopencore-amrnb-dev libopencore-amrwb-dev \
    libsdl1.2-dev libtheora-dev libva-dev libvdpau-dev libvorbis-dev libx11-dev \
    libxfixes-dev libxvidcore-dev texi2html yasm zlib1g-dev
cd
git clone git://git.videolan.org/x264
cd x264
./configure --enable-static
make
sudo checkinstall --pkgname=x264 --pkgversion="3:$(./version.sh | \
    awk -F'[" ]' '/POINT/{print $4"+git"$5}')" --backup=no --deldoc=yes \
    --fstrans=no --default
cd
git clone git://git.videolan.org/ffmpeg
cd ffmpeg
./configure --enable-gpl --enable-libfaac --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb \
    --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libx264 \
    --enable-libxvid --enable-nonfree --enable-postproc --enable-version3 --enable-x11grab
make
sudo checkinstall --pkgname=ffmpeg --pkgversion="5:$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M)-git" --backup=no \
  --deldoc=yes --fstrans=no --default
hash x264 ffmpeg ffplay ffprobe
cd ~/x264
make distclean
./configure --enable-static
make
sudo checkinstall --pkgname=x264 --pkgversion="3:$(./version.sh | \
    awk -F'[" ]' '/POINT/{print $4"+git"$5}')" --backup=no --deldoc=yes \
    --fstrans=no --default

Install winff using synaptic

apt-get install winff


Download the winff presets from winff site
http://winff.googlecode.com/files/presets-libavcodec52-v6.xml.gz
Extract and copy over the previous ~/.winff/presets.xml  you may want to back up the existing file first.

Open WinFF
In the winff preferences change the path to ffmpeg anf ffplay to:
/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg
/usr/local/bin/ffplay

Looking in the presets, you will notice that there is now a mp4 section and also a Android compatible video section, I chose the Android section for my coding.






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Lightweight Offline Home Search Page for Android Devices

Every time you open a new window on the Android browser it loads a home page, usually google page by default.
Every time that pages loads, data is sent through the internet to retrieve that page and in most cases the GPS is activated to determine your location to "better help find you".

I have written a small and simple "offline" search web page, to be stored on the SD card and to be configured as the home page.

Advantages:

• Has both DDG and Google search fields
• Instant loading
• Uses less data
• Customisable
• Configurable

Disadvantages:

• My version is very plain
• Your friends wont understand the advantage
• It will be harder for google to track you

Hopefully your web browser does not break the code or go to http://pastebin.com/xr4cSGfd



<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="content-type">
Search



<input class="query" size="40" name="q"
value="" autofocus="" type="text"><input
class="submit" value="Quack" type="submit">

<input name="q" size="31" maxlength="255"
value="" type="text"><input value="Google Search"
type="submit">







But is should look like this if you make a html page, name it search.html

Go ahead and put this on your android device, I put mine in /sdcard/Documents/search.html

Now in you android browser, type in the location of the search.html file
file:///sdcard/Documents/search.html

Make sure it works for you, then set it as your home page!



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How to block ads on your android ZTE V9

This is the easiest way to block ads on the ZTE V9 or any other android device.


We are going to make a hosts file to redirect ant ad servers to 127.0.0.1 a.k.a localhost.

Why

• Free
• No app download
• Saves on bandwidth - BIG TIME
• Works on all apps on the device i.e. system wide
• Safe and easy hack!

Prerequisite:

• Root your device using z4root or similar
• Install terminal app from the android marketplace
• Download a hosts file WITH Unix character formatting to the sdcard

How to:

• Open the terminal emulator
• Type 'su' to get root access
• Navigate to etc folder  'cd /etc'
• rename hosts to hosts.old  'mv hosts hosts.old'
• Navigate to the sd card  'cd /sdcard'
• Copy hosts file dowloaded to /etc  'cat hosts > /etc/hosts'
• Exit the terminal (you should not receive any errors)

Why cat?
"cat filename1 > filename2" - For some reason, the Droid does not come with a copy (cp) command. This works in the exact same way

Does it work...

Page with a Ad

Ad gone!

Page with too many ads...

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Optus ZTE V9 Android device review + Upgrade to 2.2

This is a great price tablet, $149 through Optus prepaid and comes with PP net and phone access.

It has:

• Micro USB port for PC connection
• Phone
• Bluetooth
• Camera
• Headphone Jack
• Sim Slot for 3G
• Micro SD slot
• 7 Inch Touch Screen
• FM Radio
• Wifi
• and GPS (undocumented)

It fails:

• It can't play AVI files!
• You will need a google account to install apps, it asks you to sign in.
• Locked to Optus network and Optus branded outside and in. For now ;)
• Too big to use as a phone :()

The touch screen is good and the whole device is very simple and minimalistic.  When purchasing it you will have to surrender your identity to the retailer.

We decided to upgrade to Android 2.2 to get flash player working and to use the device to share 3G over WIFI.


Upgrading the ZTE V9 to Android 2.2.

Download the upgrade package application to your PC (Optus_V9 Upgrade Tool_30th_April.zip).


Run the Upgrade tool and install the driver to your PC and keep the upgrade package application open.

Switch off the ZTE device, power it down, connect it to the PC via the USB cable.

Put the ZTE device into FTM mode by pressing power and quickly holding both volume buttons until FTM is displayed on the screen.

The ZTE device will open another com port and the upgrade application will upload the new OS via USB.

When done, disconnect the USB cable and with a few minutes until it boots up, be patient.






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Geo Locate Wifi Routers using andriodmap

This proof of concept site http://samy.pl/androidmap/ works very well in finding wifi routers.  It does this by gathering google information obtained from android devices.


So perhaps you are trying to hone in on the location of a nearby AP.  If you have the BSSID then you can punch it in to get a ball park of the location.  It is a great wardriving recon application.



Try it out for yourself, all you need is the mac address of your router.  I got this mac from the example page on the interweb.