I arrived back last week after attending the 16th Conference on Computer Communications and Security (CCS09) and Fourth Annual Workshop on Scalable Trusted Computing (STC09) in Chicago, USA. The conference was really good and provided an opportunity that inspired very promising ideas. Hope to get some of them prepared for the future conferences. Take a look at my publications page for details on the paper in STC. You can also take a look at the JSR321 project (the target of this paper) here.

I was also able to take my camera with me there and managed to take some shots. You can take a look at them at my flickr ‘Chicago’ set.

I recently went to Naran in Kaghan Valley of NWFP (Pakistan). The place is amazing and I’d just bought a new SLR camera. So, my friends and I shot quite a few pictures of the place. I’ve uploaded them in many places but this being my primary blog, I’ll be putting thumbnails here along with links to the full versions. Click on the thumbnails for full versions and details.

More photos coming soon here.

I had trouble getting Matlab 7 to work with Windows 7 RC even after setting the compatibility options. So, after a bit of search, here’s the solution (copied from ELFEHRIJ on http://bit.ly/Jt7ij with some minor changes).

After installing Matlab (use Classic Windows Theme if you have problems with the installer):

1. To use Matlab with other windows 7 themes you have to change Java VM used by matlab.
2. Download latest Java version and install it.
3. Go to  <Matlab-installation-dir>\sys\java\jre\win32 you will find a file named jre1.5.0_07 (or a similar version). Rename it to Original_<whatever was originally there>
4. Go to C:\Program Files\Java you will find file named jre6. Copy it to <Matlab-installation-dir>\sys\java\jre\win32 and rename it to <original jre directory name>

This will ensure that Matlab uses the new JRE instead of the old one. Just start Matlab now!

This tutorial is about flashing your Android Developer Phone 1 with your own custom build. It will provide a concise description of steps involved along with a special portion on how to port Google’s apps on your custom build. I found that particularly troublesome with little help on the Internet. So, that will be a bonus

First the disclaimer: This is for your Android Dev Phone 1 (ADP1). If you’re using T-Mobile’s SIM/firmware locked phone, stop. This tutorial is not for you. If you’re using ADP1, proceed at your own risk. You may brick your phone if you do something wrong and I shall not be held responsible for it. Finally, you might want to backup your factory-provided image. I don’t think it’s really necessary because you can just flash it again using the HTC provided images.

So, here is how it’s done:

1. First, you need to download the android source code as here: http://source.android.com/download. It’s fairly straight forward and doesn’t require much thought. Just follow the instructions but try to see how things are working because you’ll need to understand it for gaining a full appreciation of later steps.
2. After the final ‘repo sync’, do not ‘make’ the source. You need to customize the build for your ADP1. Go here and get the local_manifest.xml file. There’s some problem with the manifest file and it didn’t work for me with the master, cupcake or donut branch of android. Here’s what you need to do:
   • Remove the <remove-project> tag from the manifest file you just downloaded. There’s no such project as kernel in the source!
   • Change the ‘platform/vendor/htc/dream’ project name to ‘platform/vendor/htc/dream-open’
   • Put the manifest file in ‘.reop’ directory in your android source (I’m assuming it’s in ‘/mydroid’)
3. There are some proprietary binaries that you need to extract from the phone device. Connect the device to your system as described here. Then, go to ‘vendor/htc/dream’  and run ‘./extract-files.sh’.
4. In your android source directory, run ‘echo TARGET_PRODUCT:=htc_dream > buildspec.mk’. This tells the make scripts to build for htc_dream device.
5. Finally, ‘make’.
6. After the making is done, you’ll have the final images in ‘out/target/product/dream’. Go in that directory.
7. Reboot the device while holding down the camera button. You should see a screen that has android bots on skateboards. Connect the device to the PC with a USB and hit the back button on the device. You should see the ’serial0′ message change to ‘fastboot’. (If it doesn’t, hit back a few more times.)
8. From the PC, issue the following command:
   • sudo /mydroid/out/host/linux-x86/bin/fastboot flash system system.img
   • sudo /mydroid/out/host/linux-x86/bin/fastboot flash boot boot.img
   • sudo /mydroid/out/host/linux-x86/bin/fastboot flash userdata userdata.img
   • sudo /mydroid/out/host/linux-x86/bin/fastboot reboot
9. After the machine reboots, you should have your own build running on the device!

You’ll notice that there are no Google applications on the device — no Market, no Gmail, no Maps, no Talk, no Youtube. Android doesn’t look so good without all those applications and you can’t even go to the Market to get the cool new apps. That simply won’t do, would it. As I promised I’ll show you how to port Google apps on to the phone, here it goes:

1. Perform steps 1 – 5 above to get the final images. Then, remove the images! Hold on now. We’ll be making those sweet images in a minute. There are some things that we need to put in the image first. Something we don’t have the source of but we can get hold of the binaries. Go to the HTC page and get their recovery image. Not the system image, mind, but the recovery image.
2. Open the image in the archive manager and navigate to ’system/app’ directory. Extract the following files from the image to ‘/tmp/system-apps’:
   • checkin.apk
   • Gmail.apk
   • GmailProvider.apk
   • GoogleApps.apk
   • GoogleContactsProvider.apk
   • GooglePartnerSetup.apk
   • GoogleSearch.apk
   • GoogleSettingsProvider.apk
   • GoogleSubscribedFeedsProvider.apk
   • gtalkservice.apk
   • HtcLog.apk
   • ImProvider.apk
   • Maps.apk
   • NetworkLocation.apk
   • SetupWizard.apk
   • Street.apk
   • Talk.apk
   • Vending.apk (This here is the Market!)
   • VoiceDialer.apk
   • VoiceSearch.apk
   • YouTube.apk
   • (All these applications are hopelessly interlinked and if you miss one, you’re sure you get a host of exceptions thrown at you at runtime. It caused me no small amount of headache when I was trying to get this to work.)
3. Then, go to ’system/framework’ in the same archive and extract these files to ‘/tmp/system-framework’:
   • com.android.im.plugin.jar
   • com.google.android.gtalkservice.jar
   • com.google.android.maps.jar
   • (these are the libraries with which different apps are linked.)
4. Last, get the files ‘com.google.android.gtalkservice.xml’ and ‘com.google.android.maps.xml’ from ‘/system/etc/permissions’ from the archive and put them in ‘/tmp/system-perms’.
5. Delete the files ‘out/target/product/dream/obj/PACKAGING/systemimage_unopt_intermediates/system.img’ and ‘out/target/product/dream/system.img’
6. Move all the files from ‘/tmp/system-apps/’ to ‘out/target/product/dream/system/app’, from ‘/tmp/system-framework’ to ‘out/target/product/dream/system/framework’ and from ‘/tmp/system-perms’ to ‘out/target/product/dream/system/etc/permissions’. This will add the files to the image when we create it using make again.
7. Now, go back to the android source home and ‘make’. It takes very little time
8. Now, flash the images as before (Steps 6-9 above).
9. You should now have all the Google apps working on your custom build.

Let me know if there are any problems. I might not be able to help but I can certainly take wild guesses.

We received our Google Android Dev Phone 1 yesterday and immediately ran into trouble. We don’t have a supported carrier here and we couldn’t get our own carriers to work with Android because we didn’t have the APN information. Android’s distro that comes bundled into the Dev Phone won’t let you in without an APN  though. You get a “SIM not found” message and you can’t do anything other than dial an emergency number. So, after searching for a while, I found some useful tips for getting around the problem.

First, you need to plug in your phone through the provided USB. If you’re running XP, the device will probably not be recognized. (It wasn’t for me.) So, download the Android phone driver here (or here) and install it when XP asks to search for a driver. (Thanks to anddev for this information.) After that, get the Android SDK from here. Go to command prompt and navigate to the tools directory in the SDK. Then execute these commands.


adb shell
su
cd /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases
sqlite3 settings.db
INSERT INTO system (name, value) VALUES ('device_provisioned', 1);
.exit
reboot


Once the device finishes rebooting,


adb shell
am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n com.android.settings/.Settings


Many thanks to Android Tricks for writing this tip.

Update 1: Android SDK ships with the latest version of the windows Android phone driver. You can find it in $ANDROID_SDK_HOME/usb_driver. So, you don’t need to download the driver using the links provided above.

Update 2: To get the Android device to work on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope, you need to perform the following steps:

1. sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
2. Add this line to the file: SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0bb4", MODE="0666"
   (You can get the 0bb4 value from lsusb for High Tech Corporation (i.e. HTC) if you work with a different phone)
3. sudo chmod a+rx /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
4. sudo /etc/init.d/udev restart
5. adb devices (to see the device)

StudyBlue offers a social networking approach to studying. You can create classes, add professors, join networks and share documents and class notes not only with your classmates but also with those from other colleges. Like all social networks, it requires that you bring your friends over or it wouldn’t be very helpful. However, it allows you to read the public notes of other members of the site and that might serve as a very useful feature even when you don’t have many of your friends joining the site.

Sign up for an account here: http://www.studyblue.com

Our second research and development project has been approved by the National ICTR&D Fund, Pakistan. ICTR&D is a highly reputable funding agency and funds only state-of-the-art projects in the field of information and communication technologies. We at SERG have become the first group in NWFP to have two projects approved by ICTR&D. This one brings 14.7 million to SERG. (Not that we can use it willy-nilly but still.)

This project is about Android security. We’ll be making the details of the project available soon using our group’s homepage but I can announce right now that we will be needing highly skilled, motivated and energetic individuals to work with us on this very interesting and challenging new technology. If you’ve been looking at the web, you’d know how much popularity Android is getting. I can also assure any potential candidates that the pay is very handsome.

So, keep reading this space to see when we announce the interviews, show up for the interview and join our team of dedicated, hard-working (and funny) individuals.

This is a more of a brainstorm than an idea and I have no idea if this already exists. But here’s the thought anyway.

I read “Adobe Blogs” — a single interface to all the blogs contributed by the Adobe team. Is there an equivalent of that in the twitter/microblog world? To the extent that I’ve seen it, there is none. Each corporation dedicates a person to write on twitter for them. How’s about having a single aggregating microblog that provides a single interface to a corporation’s microbloggers. Right now, you have to subscribe to all the different microbloggers or have a single person write on behalf of the whole business. Can we not distribute this so that every employee can chip in?

HTC (the guys who built the first Android phone for T-Mobile) have released a new Android-based smartphone called Hero. It’s an amazing piece of technology and looks really cute. We’ll be trying to get our hands on this one but only if it’s not SIM-locked. Not likely, since HTC is a manufacturer, not a carrier. It runs on a customized Android OS. Looks like HTC guys put a lot of effort into the UI of the device. Not only is it multi-touch, it also looks like the next gen of UIs for smartphones. Here are the specs:

http://www.htc.com/www/product/hero/specification.html

Here’s the phone:

Android-based Hero from HTC

I’ve been an ardent fan and promoter of all social networking sites for a long time now. I’ve brought many people to twitter and I’ve even setup my own local laconi.ca server. However, in light of recent news surrounding twitter, I feel it necessary to inform the people I know about the hazards of using twitter without care. Here’s why:

Twitter is a mass communication medium. It’s falls under the same category as a television channel, a news site or even a printed newspaper. As with all mass communication devices, it can and is being misused. I’m not talking about spammers here. I’m talking about the use of the media as a (to put it mildly) opinion shifter. You keep listening to a news channel long enough, you begin to follow their line of reasoning. You keep reading a newspaper long enough, you begin to believe the perspective of the editor. Similarly, if you follow your political news on twitter, you begin to think like the 10% of the twitter “actives” before you know it. (I got that 10% from @erictpeterson’s talk at the “140 characters conference” on twitter.) Twitter is one of the most convenient brainwashing tools if you’re in that 10%.

So, when you use twitter, here are my suggestions:

1. Use twitter for your own domain only. Use it to communicate with your friends, follow the leaders in the area that you’re familiar with. Do not follow news sites! For me, I follow only computer scientists, bloggers and physics review sites.  Things I know I can trust my own logic and knowledge with.
2. Tread with care around controversial issues. See everything with skepticism.

These are the two golden rules I follow for any mass communication media. For twitter, they’re just as important.