Fixing the "Error getting final archive: Debug certificate expired on xx/xx/xxxx" problem

If you are developing Android applications for a while on the same computer (specifically for more than 365 days) you should be familiar with the "Error getting final archive: Debug certificate expired" error which will stop you from testing your applications.

When the Android SDK is installed, it creates a Debug Key which is used to automatically sign applications when you hit the run button and upload them to the Emulator/Test device. The certificate is only valid for 365 days after which you get the error above.

There are two ways to tackle this issue:

1. You can either get the Android SDK to recreate a debug key - and repeat this every 1 year.
2. You can create your own key and set the expiry date yourself.

Downloading and Parsing Vendor IDS files to CSV in VB.Net

The following function will parse an ids file and produce an equivalent CSV file. It has been tested with the following two ids files:

1. The PCI ven/dev list: http://pciids.sourceforge.net/v2.2/pci.ids
2. The USB ven/dev list: http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids

Ids files seem to have two sections; The first section contains the list of hardware and vendor IDs, while the second section has a list of known device classes, subclasses and programming interfaces. This function will only parse the first section. In principle, the only thing that one needs to do to add support for another ids, is to add a line telling the function when to stop parsing (see the idsToCsv() function below, at the beginning of the "Do While objReader.Peek()" loop).

It takes two parameters: "FileInPath" is the location of the OUI file and "FileOutPath" is the path of the CSVyou want to save to. If no file is there, one will be created automatically.

Checking if an Intent handler or Activity is present

Quite often in Android you need to call a 3rd party Intent or activity.
For example, to scan a barcode using the Barcode Scanner application, or to start the "hidden" Field Test application in HTC phones.

In order to make the life of a user easier, it is a good idea to check if the Intent Receiver/Activity exists before you attempt to invoke it. Some of the reasons being:

1. If a non-existent intent, you application will force close.
2. If the intent receiver is not present, you might want to redirect the user to the market to download the necessary application.
3. Depending on the existence of an intent you might want to make menu options appear/disappear.

This post contains two functions (isIntentAvailable() and isActivityAvailable())which can perform the checking and return a boolean accordingly.

Orange UK APN Settings

I've been flashing my phone quite often recently, and some ROMs do not contain the settings for the Orange UK APNs, so I am writing them here.

For the record, they are for Pay Monthly.

APN 1: Orange Internet

• Name: Orange Internet
• APN: orangeinternet
• Proxy: <Not set>
• Port: <Not set>
• Username: <Not set>
• Password: <Not set>
• Server: <Not set>
• MMSC: <Not set>
• MMS proxy: <Not set>
• MMS port: <Not set>
• MMS protocol: WAP 2.0
• MCC: 234
• MNC: 33
• Authentication Type: <Not set>
• APN type: default

APN 2: Orange MMS

• Name: Orange MMS
• APN: orangemms
• Proxy: <Not set>
• Port: <Not set>
• Username: <Not set>
• Password: <Not set>
• Server: <Not set>
• MMSC: http://mms.orange.co.uk
• MMS proxy: 192.168.224.010
• MMS port: 8080
• MMS protocol: WAP 2.0
• MCC: 234
• MNC: 33
• Authentication Type: <Not set>
• APN type: mms

Android Wifi password locations

The other day, I realised that I had forgotten my WiFi network password back at home.

The easy way to fix this would have been to use an already connected PC to access the router and change the password there, or to use an application like WirelessKeyView to recover the password of the said PC.

If I used method 1, I'd have to give the key to my housemates, which adds a bit of hassle.

When I tried method 2, the PC I was using was running XP I got a hex string which is not very user friendly (XP automatically converts WPA-PSK keys to a 64bit non-(easily?) reversible hash).

I then decided to try to get the key off my (rooted) Desire Z. Easy enough, the passwords are stored in plaintext in the following file:

/data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf  

I then wrote a quick application to make the extraction a bit more painless (links at the bottom of the post), but when I was testing it on my Galaxy Tab, I realised that the file was not there. After a bit of digging around, I found the passwords here:

/data/wifi/bcm_supp.conf  

Also, here is the location of the file on the Streakroid ROM (this could be the default for all Dell Streaks, but as I don't have one I can't check):

/data/misc/wifi/wpa.conf  

The formatting of the files is identical and can be found here: http://linux.die.net/man/5/wpa_supplicant.conf, but the location is different (based on the whims of each developer/company I guess).

To access the files, you need root permissions.

Application Links:

• Market Link: https://market.android.com/details?id=aws.apps.wifiKeyRecovery
• Github Page: https://github.com/alt236/Wifi-Key-Recovery---Android
• Webpage: http://aschillings.co.uk/html/wifi_key_recovery.html

If anyone has a device on which the app does not work, do two things:

1. Make sure you are rooted.
2. If you are certain you are rooted and it still does not work, email me (my email can be found here: http://aschillings.co.uk/html/contact.html).

I have no way to contact you if you post anonymously in the comments section!

Ubuntu 10.10: Mimo UM-720S single screen setup

I recently needed to temporarily put a screen on a completely headless system (no graphics card installed), so I decided to use a MIMO UM-720s which was lying around (almost literally).

Naturally, was not as easy at it initially seemed...

First of all, this guide is heavily based on the one written by Andrew Simpson, which can be found here.

SECTION A: Getting it to work

Projector RS-232 Commands

This is a quick list of RS232 control commands for projectors.
The command list is by for not exclusive, but the most common ones should be listed.

If a projector model is not in the list, try any other codes from the same brand. They usually work.