Random thoughts

TL;DR: LG7304 Android Smart TV gets its software update server from somewhere in the Amazon cloud. The server name is not disclosed via regular DNS and most likely gets learned via some previous HTTPs connection. I have a LG7304 Android Smart TV that I want to prevent from getting updates (in the hopes it will become rootable in the future). I've been getting an annoying update message for weeks now (even though automatic updates are disabled in the menu), so I tried to suppress it via DNS. I set up port mirroring for the TV's ethernet port and captured boot traffic for analysis. It seems the TV communicates with several hosts located in Amazon AWS cloud, but without making DNS requests that return those IPs. So, it must either have them hardcoded in its firmware or must be getting them through an encrypted channel. You can get a list of IP addresses that your TV communicates with by using Wireshark -> Statistics -> Conversations -> IPv4. You can use whois (whoi...

After about a year of use (and some hard drops) the touchscreen in my Allview Speed City tablet (Onda 701 clone) stopped working in a 1/3 region of the screen. I could still use the tablet by rotating it when I needed to tap in the broken area, but I needed to replace the touchscreen. I got a replacement touchscreen from here: http://www.gsmnet.ro/touchscreen-uri-telefoane/touchscreen-allview-alldro-speed-city-original--81391 for about $30. I followed the replacement guide in this video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x17mxag_touch-screen-replacement-onda-v701-v702-v703-v701s-tablet-disassembly_lifestyle The disassembly (and reassembly process) took me about 2 hours, but was not very difficult. The first thing to do is to remove the rubber caps on top of the screws in the back of the tablet (use a needle/pincer). You can unscrew the screws (small phillips head). The tablets back cover is glued on (the screws don't hold it actually). You will need something like a credit ...

I was looking for a budget tablet with decent hardware (except for the screen which is crappy) so I settled on the Allview Speed City . This tablet is similar to the Chinese Onda 701 with the small difference that the Speed City does not have Volume Up/Down hardware buttons. The same hardware may be marketed and sold under other names in various countries, so check the specs before attempting to root it. The tablet is running a custom ROM based on Android 4.1.1 that includes some bloatware (like an antivirus) next to the standard apps. Fortunately, it has a recovery ROM that lets you install zip files, so, it doesn't appear to be fully locked. So, as any power user, I wanted to root the tablet and be the master of the software installed. Problem is - there was no known root available when I bought it. Note: before proceeding make sure you understand the risks of rooting, and also be advised that you may lose your warranty. Rooting instructions for the impacient So withou...

I have recently received an android smartphone, and one of the first things I did with it was to root it :). This allows power-usres to get the most out of their hardware. The next thing on my list was to set up a SSH server and to be able to transfer files between my Linux system and my phone (by the way, I'm running Android 4.1 and it seems USB mass storage support has been removed. MTP/PTP modes have either horrible transfer speed or are poorly supported in Ubuntu). With the above in mind, the plan was to: Enable tethering on the phone Run a SSH server to support issuing remote commands and file transfer (FTP might have been an alternative, but I'm a SSH adept). Browsing the market I found  SSHDroid which does all that it advertised. Problem is - the free version conflicts with my add-blocking apps and requests that they are disabled to run. For me, this is a big nuisance, so I kept looking. I found Dropbear SSH Server 2 , which is completely free, but doesn'...