monline

Adblock Plus for Android (ABP) uses the proxy approach for ad blocking, i.e. a process is continuously running in the background, listens on a specific TCP port (which is 2020 nowadays) for proxy HTTP requests and processes them based on it's ad filtering rules. If you're phone/tablet is rooted, ABP can automatically route all outgoing traffic through it's proxy. If your device is not rooted and it's running a more recent (4.2.2 or newer) Android version, then you've to manually configure your network connection to use ABP's proxy. The essential problem with this approach is that it can only process plain/unencrypted HTTP connections, while today most services go through HTTPS (SSL encryption). Let it be Facebook, Google or even warez sites like The Pirate Bay. ABP for Android is of little to no use on these sites. The only possible solution in this case is an in-app ad blocker. The Android version of Firefox does let you install the ABP extension, which will block even ads served via HTTPS/SSL. So you've a choice, even though somewhat limited (since you cannot use the browser of your choice ... you've to use Firefox if you want to get rid of HTTPS ads).

Previously I wrote this other post about how to change system settings (like Airplane Mode) by directly manipulating the SQLite database file that stores them. It turns out that there's a better way.

A pretty nice compilation of some of the more important linux commands. Of course you'll need to get familiar with them to be of any use, but at least it's a good starting point for beginners.

For a couple of months now I experienced sudden freezes. It turned out to be an overheating issue. I've moved into a new flat and here I use WiFi all the time (vs. the previous setup, where the Mac got network via UTP). Apparently the WiFi module (AirPort ... which is an Atheros AR5418 chip in my case) generates tons of extra heat (even with no traffic at all ) and the factory fan control does not account for it properly. Using smcFanControl I can increase the lower boundary of the fan speed and avoid overheating.

If you receive an event invitation (from an Exchange Server), Lightning lets you accept or decline it and offers to send an Event Invitation Reply. The problem is that the email account used for sending this reply is picked a bit differently than users would expect. The account can be set in the calendar's properties. However if a user gets invitations from multiple sources (via multiple email addresses) into the same calendar, you cannot tell it to reply using the same email account that received the invitation. You can set this only on a per calendar basis. What a pity.

The /system/bin/run-as command lets you execute a shell or a package as the owner of the package. But you've to be root or use ADB to use it. And the package has to be debuggable and user owned (i.e. system apps cannot be impersonated like this).

Using Sourcery CodeBench Lite you can quite easily cross-compile tons of open-source projects for Android. But sometimes regardless of all your efforts, the compiled binary contains library dependencies. To list these dependencies, we regularily use ldd. The cross-compiler does not have an ldd script, but we can work around that by executing this instead:

"Having trouble with your Snow Leopard Services menu telling you that it’s building (but never finishing)? Here are a few things you can try..."

The very first tip (running /System/Library/CoreServices/pbs from the commandline) helped. It didn't even need root privileges or a reboot.

In short: use top (with shift+H to show threads) to get the most CPU intensive threads, use jstack to get a thread dump from the JVM and look for the "nid=<threadid in hex>" value of your rogue thread in the dump.

A Perl script to convert from Outlook's MSG format ("Composite Document File V2 Document" if you use file to check) into a MIME format that eg. Thunderbird can open (if you rename the *.mime file into *.eml).