Hack! – Page 2 – javier arturo rodríguez

Changing TiVo’s timezone and date/time

To change your TiVo’s timezone and date/time follow these steps:

Get timezoneadj30.tcl. I don’t have access to tivo_canada’s archive, so I had to write my own timezoneadj30.tcl.
Edit it and change the timezone. It seems that 0=GMT,3=EST
Run ./timezoneadj30.tcl
```
# ./timezoneadj30.tcl
```

Set the clock using settime, e.g.

# settime 20031123025900
# settime -rtc

I noticed that if you set the time back, the IR blaster stops working. I’m not proud of my solution:
```
# reboot
```

Note: This post was originally listed under the static TiVO page, but I’ll start managing the TiVo section with WordPress.

Cellphone unlocking for dummies

NokiaFree screenshot Say you are going to travel to Europe, but are unwilling to pay the insane roaming fees that some functional monopoly imposes in your country. So you buy an overseas GSM chip and drop it into you phone and it just works, right?
Wrong.
Your carrier is probably unwilling to let you use the phone you’re leasing from them -and even the one you outright bought from them with a nice markup- in some competitor network. Any competitor network. Even if it is half a world away.
Well, there’s help out there, and there is hope:
NokiaFREE calculator will provide unlocking codes for the most popular models from a dozen manufacturers, either online or in a standalone version.
However, if you succumbed to temptation and bought a Treo 600 just five months before the Treo 650 was released in your country, you might have to reflash it under your own risk.
Update 20050910: In an article aptly named 20 Things They Don’t Want You to Know, PC World writes about cellphone unlocking, but fails to even notice NokiaFree.

Installing Debian from a USB Flash Disk

Today I had to install a new Debian server, and the only CD-ROM drive on a 5km radius decided to die on me. However I have my trusty 64MB no-brand taiwanese USB flash drive with me, and I turned to http://d-i.pascal.at/ to find out how to perform the lifesaving miracle of installing Debian from said $25 piece of silicon (I bet it goes for less than $10 these days). The server refused to boot from USB the first time, and after repeating the process a couple of times I gave up and repartitioned the whole drive, did yet another install-mbr and repeated the process. Instant gratification. The base system is being installed as I type this. BTW, I went with the most recent Business card CD Image in http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/.