Hacking devices can/will void your warranty and can turn your expensive consumer electronics into worthless trash if you don't know what you're doing. This blog is for information purposes only, and if you try to hack into your own consumer electronics, you do so at your own risk. The device I'm currently hacking is the Canon SX10 IS camera.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Changing the theme

Credit where credit is due: the rtd1261.wikidot.com site contained the information about what format the graphics had to be saved in. And Superberny put together a package for IomTools that contained most of the graphic files necessary, which made it easier to identify.

So what I did was go through all of the BMP files on the drive and identify the purpose and where they appeared on the screenplay. This is to make it easier for other people to do custom themes by changing the graphics.

I documented it on the wiki:
http://screenplayprohd.wikia.com/wiki/Modifying_the_Interface

That will make it easier for people to change what has to be changed to match whatever theme. Now I need to figure out how I'm going to identify the locations that each of the overlays appear. But it's really late at night / really early in the morning, so I'm done for today.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Other hacks

I picked up a Canon SX10 IS camera to replace my outdated Canon PowerShot S30. I had hacked the Powershot S30, so I figured there might be something for the SX10. And there was: http://chdk.wikia.com contains a wealth of information for supplementing the existing firmware. I'm already using many of the features, including taking snapshots of lightning, displaying the battery power in %, the temperature of the lens, ccd, and battery compartments, the time displayed on the OSD, and the best thing: Removal of the hot/dead pixels. I had one set near the middle and it was very obvious in all of my pictures. I didn't want to return the camera for "possibly" getting a fix, and the firmware fixed it right up. If you have a canon camera, it's definitely worth checking into that hack. I'd love to say I had something to do with it, but all I've done is applied other people's work at this point.

Today, my laundry machine had some problems. I have a GE Harmony washer. Luckily, with a lot of research and a little bit of luck, I was able to determine a "test" mode for the washer. Push power on, then hold down on help and press start/stop. Then you can test out specific things like spin, fill cold, fill hot, drain, agitate, etc, overriding what the washer would normally do. There's another one that is similar, something like back and home at the same time. But it will actually make your washer reset. I had to use it once when my washer reported a problem while I was reassembling it. Oh, and common knowledge, but if you put a magnet near the front left side of the lid, there is a reed switch that triggers so that the laundry machine thinks that the lid is down. That way you can watch what is going on inside.

Trying to catch up with everything after my vacation, so hopefully I will be able to get back to the Screenplay soon.