Marcin Juszkiewicz - windows

Palm SDK has leaked

2009-06-29T16:54:00+02:00

As some of my readers already noticed there is WebOS SDK available for Palm Pre smartphone. Or rather “available” as it is leaked edition not normal release. I will not describe how to get it (using Google is enough) but rather how to get it run under Linux and a bit about what is inside.

The bad part is that SDK is (so far) available only as MS Windows binary. I did not tried it with WINE but used XP Pro installation on one of my machines to install it. There are two additional installations to be done first — VirtualBox 2.2.x is required by Palm SDK to be installed and Safari is required for “Palm Inspector” tool (which I did not got to work anyway).

After installation two important files: “palm_emulator_sdk_47.vmdk” and “palm_emulator_sdk_47.iso” can be found in “Documents and Settings/$USER/.VirtualBox/” subdirectories (they are also available in “Program Files/Palm/SDK/share/emulator/sdk47/” directory). There is also “Palm Emulator” icon on desktop which makes use of them.

So back to Linux. VirtualBox hard drive image and ISO needs to be copied to Linux machine and given for VirtualBox (configuration of virtual machine can be copied from MS Windows too). It is also possible to use QEMU to boot into SDK but it can be harder to find one with working mouse emulation. This is where their changes to QEMU or VirtualBox would be handy to get — adding 320x480px resolution to QEMU is few minutes work anyway (needs to change sources of vga bios and replace system one with tweaked copy).

What can be seen after boot? First error which I hope will be fixed in final release — “vga=864” kernel parameter results in “unknown video mode” message. Anyway other modes are working and I suggest 640x480x16 as it has the same height as Palm Pre screen. There is a one problem due that — screen has wrong calibration so it is hard to use UI.

Palm splash

WebOS initial screen

Launcher

First use dialog

New contact dialog

Dialer with two calls

Cards

Google Maps

Video player

Calculator with transparent menu opened

Wrong touchscreen calibration effect (I am clicking on blue dot)

Some applications are coded in ugly style — seems to have 320x480px resolution hardcoded (Google Maps, Video player, Dialer). But there are also others which resize properly (Contacts, desktop). To play with them few key shortcuts are useful to know:

TAB — runs launcher
Escape — “minimize” application to a card

Looks like other keys launch search tool — I have to admit that I did not searched yet for documentation.

But what is inside of image and why it works? Image was built for “qemux86” device by using OpenEmbedded build system — no new patches added. There is SSH daemon working in emulator so it is possible to login remotely and check what is in system. There are 697 packages installed (285 of them being kernel modules). Image looks like it was built on a same system as WebOS 1.0.3 image for Palm Pre (about which I already wrote few days ago).

Ah, I would forgot… There are few JavaScript examples in SDK if someone wants to know how to make “hello world” for WebOS.

Final thoughts — WebOS looks interesting and I would like to play more with it on real device. The bonus part is that it is even able to run classic PalmOS applications (but this is with 3rdparty application). Too bad that there is no GSM version yet.

I found “nice” thing

2008-05-26T18:09:00+02:00

Few days ago I gave my 2GB pendrive for my wife as she was going to fotolab to make some photos. It contained our wedding photos. Today I mounted it on one of my systems and discovered “nice” thing on it…

In root directory there were two files which were not present there before — MS32DLL.dll.vbs and autorun.inf which executes first one. From first look it does not make too many harm for Microsoft Windows systems — looks like it only change window title for Internet Explorer so many people will not even notify but I wonder how many fotolabs or other such places put even more nasty things on client’s media…

Partition Signature !=55AA

2007-07-27T13:46:00+02:00

Due to fact that some of embedded devices require using vendor tools I decided to install Microsoft Windows XP Professional on my Dell D400. As this machine lack CD-ROM drive I had to find other way. “Unattended” project provides boot discs which allow to make installation over PXE (netboot).

I followed DOS way and gave my tweaked copy of installation CD for it. The first problem was that I got “Partition Signature !=55AA” message after reboot and machine was unbootable. Hopefully I can boot grub4dos over PXE so I was able to go back to the Debian.

How to fix it? In my situation marking FAT32 partition as bootable solved problem.

The message is messy because there was 0x55aa signature at the end of MBR…

Freeware definition of MS Windows world

2006-10-01T17:12:00+02:00

Today I looked for some tools for Microsoft Windows platform. Got some results marked as freeware so I looked deeply at them (why to pay if can get tool for free). And what did I saw? Definition of ‘freeware’ has been changed during last years… Now it means:

Freeware: software which you can try for free but any usage need you to register and pay $$$.

For me it is just ‘demo’, ‘trial’ version but not freeware.