How many cards in Blackjack?
So following up my earlier post, here are some links to various websites I browsed along on my journey to learn more about the whole fuckery mess of the java VM screwup on cingulars blackjack. This is basically a rambling train of thought with links pointing to relevant points of information and informative finds as i figure out my plan of attack and options to overhaul my phone.
Of course, the first thing I thought when I ran into the super-nag problem was ‘Well maybe there is a pro-tip tweak or unlock feature that i can look up to disable this.’
I ended up, of course, at cingulars forums.
Our Guidelines are pretty clear about third-party sites offering first-party software. It’s very simple: Don’t do it.Unless you have a link directly the first-party websites operated by Samsung or Microsoft for the WM6 OS update, do NOT post any links here. Do NOT send PMs with a link to a third-party site offering the software update. Users who don’t follow this will be banned from this forum.
http://forums.wireless.att.com/cng/board/message?board.id=samsung&thread.id=32851
Glancing that over, it’s pretty clear somebody out there does NOt want people having this information. Granted, it could just be a legality issue, or a support issue, but if WM6 is out..where is it for the blackjack? shouln’t we have it? or are they goin’ to do the exact same thing to it? *puts on tinfoil hat* :)
Further searching around the forum revealed verious other people annoyed with the same problem, but no real solutions. Another model of phone used a simple file edit to rid itself of the same trick, but that trick edeosn’t work on the blackjack as far as i could hunt down.
Stumbled on this guys site, nothing but links really, but uefull in its own sense, it gave me some of the links that started this whole wild goose chase.. tons and tons of java apps.. that i cant USE!
This was one of the first pages i ran across on google, talking about a rather simple hack to unlock the java VM on another phone (The CU500) which was limited in a similar way, which more or less lead to some of the following links as i continued looking around..
And then I hit tnkgrl’s wordpress site, who seems to have had a similar experience as myself, finding this to be one hell of an issue. She also had luck doing a few other things like getitng it to sync on a mac, and then..
Then I got the phone SIM unlocked and application unlocked. With a bit of help, I also got SlingPlayer working and the annoying startup/shutdown audio disabled. The only fix left is finding a way to stop Java applications from constantly prompting for permission to access the network.
Oh, well, if she got those to work, then i’ll take some notes. more on those later.
This is the link, that started to have things really fall into place on hat was going on, which led to This link over at the dev center for cingular/att, which has some good reading if you can shovel past all the marketing hyperblast bullshit to find anything remotely technical, i was checking if maybe you could get your hands on the java VM code to bake your own, IE, rebuild without their stupid permission tweak.
I didn’t find it, but i’m still going to dig around some more, the website is hardly built to be helpful, its all eye candy and flashy crap. some developer site huh? :)
You will have to register over there for free to really get top the juicy stuff. I see SDK’s, but i don’t see the VM anywhere..yet.
So i moved on, continuing my way through google to..these links. This one is a forum thread by a java developer who’s run smack into the face of this problem, and he got some very direct, evasive, downright useless spin from a rep at cingular. It’s a fascinating peek into the bullshit factory some of these companies have running around inside themselves they probably are not even aware of.
Choice quote:
Gone are the days of the good citizen developer who is creating applications merely to fulfil the needs of user community. Because entities such as spammers have chosen to spoil the past freedom of development to attack, exploit, or impede the normal usage of Cingular customers, Cingular has to take these measures. This protection is meant to ensure that emergency services such as e-911 or Amber Alerts will function in the extreme situations it is warranted, and protect our data users from both network based attacks, and personal privacy attacks.
Wait..what? Say that again? By the way, thats cingular rep speaking there, read the thread, there are even better tidbits.. this solidified the fact that this was a very intentional ‘adjustment’ and not some oversight programming foul-up.
For those of you who don’t know, this is the first signs of ‘trusted computing‘, where a company, a private entitiy, decides what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and gives you zero say in the matter. You want to run a java based SSH client with all the bells on? Well, only if ‘they’ say its alright, and only if ‘they’ don’t feel like making a cheap knockoff and charging you for it, or charging the developer to earn ‘trusted’ status and to be distributed only through their ‘trusted’ network.
Think RIAA, for software permissions on privately owned hardware, with a little rep hawking over your CPU all day and night telling you what to, and what NOT to allow, and forcing you to comply with a gun.
Feel trusted yet? Yeah, thought not. :P
Anyway, I kept researching. An then i happened to hit yet another link on the same website, which opened up the golden gate of ideas.
This entry talks about replacing the standard java VM with an alternative one entirely! This is one of the workarounds cooked up so people could get java based google maps apps to work without constant nagging.
Posted below is a modified version of the IMB J9 JVM. Also included in the ZIP are the Gmail and Google Maps midlets. Follow the instructions below (also in the ZIP file). You will need to copy the Tahoma fonts from your Windows machine to the phone (as instructed). Once installed, you will be able to use the Gmail and Google Maps midlets and the fonts will be much more readable than if you install the the non-modified J9 JVM. If you’ve already installed the J9 JVM, you will need to uninstall it before proceeding. Samsung Blackjack and Gmail/Google Maps
THAT gave me confirmation, you *could* replace the java VM on this black box of goodness…of course there is a downside, the forum thread linked in that posting is littered with broken and missing links, and files nobody can download. so it kept me from testing the instructions out (which i couldn’t find because the websites were all gone!)
Talk about a real pissoff. Just a favor to ask you people ou there, if you ever unlock of crack open a phone or other thing people will likely need to do? put it on a website where it won’t get fucking erased in a month! :P
I locked this page into a bookmark and started pouring all over the net looking for other possible solutions, this one was a little old, and i asnt entirely comfortable with the idea just yet.
Eventualy I went to try and read up some loose info on IBM’s java webspehere implementation myself. The geekier of you can check that out over here at IBM’s webspehere page.
It was starting to become clearer and clearer here. The blackjack has an ARM processor, its hardware probably very similar to past implementations of the JVM on IBM’s site for other platforms, somebody probably just tweaked a few things and crammed it into an windows mobile 5 installer. Sweet. i’m no java guru, but i know a few who might be able to help out with that if thats the route i end up going.
After much more rooting around through wayback machine (great for looking at past-tense websites), google and even a few old FTP sites (no, i’m not kidding) , i finally found a few sites that had the files that were missing from those forum threads!
Here is one such website. Either way, I have already grabbed the files, and the text, and I will be reposting them later to ensure they stick around a while longer.
At this point I decided it was time to start getting more familiar with the guts and gore of my new baby.
First off, I googled around and decided to give googlemaps a shot, the native, non java version. Even that required me to hack and tweak a few things, first up on the list is windows registry editing. My favorite! NOT! :P
First off, here is the page talking about how to get googlemaps working on windows mobile 5 devices, the instructions work for blackjack/cingular with a bluetooth gps.
First things first, it’s an unsigned app, much like the unsinged java problem, but much easier to fix, just grab and run this, and off you go, you have software unlocked the OS to run unsinged WM apps, now read this link so you understand what the hell this means.(Note this just explains software unlocking, the values on the page are no for the blackjack) yay for you.
Next for googlemaps (and probably later toying), i grabbed the registry editor off his other page here. (and a couple other apps, too, really handy stuff there, check out the main page, too!)
Some tips here, its easier to grab the jar file that creates the proper registry entry and just rename your GPS unit to ‘BT GPS’ under bluetooth options. And make sure it has a secure connection and outgoing Com6. Everything should just fall into place after that. And no, its not ‘tracking location’ right when you get it working, the program is still buggy.
Anyway, So, the more i looked around, the more i kept coming across unlock pages, and people talking about throwing WM6 or fresh untamperd versions of WM5 onto their blackjacks. Or people getting them fully unlocked so they could tamper with them more, After a few jerkoff websites like this one, trying to charge money for a process i knew i could do myself..I found this rather amusing blog.
Why mess around? Just call cingular and tell them to unlock your phone for you, FREE.
Thats right, free. As in, no charge. Why? Read the article, its required by law. After the 30 day trial, its YOUR phone, period. and even if you unlock it, if you keep the plan open..you technically arn’t violating your agreement with them. Good for them! Good for you, everybody wins! I like that. They don’t get dicked, you don’t get dicked, everybody is happy. Where and ow the hell did this happen and why did i miss it?
It’s about this time that my phone started ringing alot and work and everyday stuff started to pull my attention way. But Thats alot of sifting and reading between rounds of java pong against my blackjack, and i’m telling you, the bitch cheats!
I’ve narrowed my options down to a few possible choices.
- A, replace the java VM, which from what i understand can be undone by simply uninstalling it, the old java install takes over again. Worth a shot, i think.
- B, see if maybe, somehow, i can get my hands on the java build itself, maybe from sun or someplace, and just replace it..with itself! non tampered of course.
- C, Say fuckit all, unlock the phone, back up my contacts and other junk, and find myself a copy of windows mobile 5 or 6, tripple check i can undo and recover if all else fails, and go for the gusto. If that works to the ends of me having a tamper-free blackjack with full singular service, i will be one VERY happy dude!
But thats more research…tomarrow.