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Tonight, I started getting an error while trying to run my app from Xcode on my device (provisioned for development). The error was:

Your mobile device has encountered an unexpected error (0xE8000001)
during the install phase: Copying file.
Try disconnecting and powering off the device; then power the device
on and reconnect it.

I tried resetting the device a number of times and rebooting my MBP as well to no avail. It was beginning to look like I was going to have to do the dreaded restore and then lose all the cool jailbreak stuff that I’ve become so accustomed to. And then that made me remember that because my device is jailbroken, I can ssh to it and poke around. I wondered if a previous failed copy left some garbage on the device that was causing subsequent copies to fail.

iPhone:/ root# find . -name 'Word Up*'
./private/var/mobile/Media/PublicStaging/Word Up!.app
iPhone:/ root# cd /var/mobile/Media/PublicStaging/
iPhone:/var/mobile/Media/PublicStaging root# rm -rf Word\ Up\!.app/

Bingo. That fixed it. So if you hit this problem and you happen to have access to the filesystem of the device, give it a shot.

Look closely at the picture below. “McCain” appears in two places.

“Push Button For McCain” these things read and if pushing these buttons does indeed register votes for McCain, then forget about ACORN - this would be an unprecedented level of voter fraud.

I’ve been here for an hour and a half and have so far only had a $35 lunch for two, waited in several lines (several for lunch and currently in one for a rainforest thingy), found out the planetarium is sold out for the rest of the day, and wrote a cranky blog post on my iPhone while waiting in line.

Republicans have to stop saying that Hollywood is the worst thing in America - until they can stop saying that Ronald Reagan is the best thing that ever happened to America.

Yay

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Everything looks very clean. We are especially happy that they got out a bunch of stains in the office that seem to have come from the casters on our office chair (today, we went to Staples and bought a chairmat to hopefully prevent that in the future).

They told us they could not clean an orange stain in the corner of the living room and I am not surprised. That came from me going a bit overboard a few months back with that spray can foam insulation stuff. I was trying to seal some little gaps that I thought were a little drafty and I underestimated the ability of this foam to expand an incredible amount and then attach itself to carpet fibers and then achieve diamond-like hardness. At the time, I tried various carpet cleaners and scrubbed until my arms were tired - I tried just about everything short of a flame thrower I think. So while it would’ve been nice if Zerorez were able to steam that bitch out, I’m not too surprised that they couldn’t and I give them credit for fessing up to it in the debriefing.

So we were pretty pleased with Zerorez.

Well, my Coastal Electronic Technologies Basic Lockpick 3 arrived today and I have to say that the experience has turned out to be much better than I had feared.

First off, if you’re not familiar with this device, it’s a $99 device that unlocks various features of the Denso navigation units while in motion, in various Toyota and Lexus vehicles. These units have an annoying feature that they monitor your speed and they refuse to allow you to do various operations while the vehicle is in motion. This is ostensibly a safety feature to prevent drivers from getting distracted, but it’s also tremendously short-sighted as it completely ignores the fact that a passenger may want to use the unit. Not having destination entry is particularly annoying. The fact is I’m with my wife most of the time that I’m driving the car. The main time I drive alone is for commuting to work and in that case I know where I’m going and don’t need navigation assistance. The navigation unit is most useful when we’re somewhere unfamiliar, like on vacation, and it’s a pain in the butt to not be able to enter a destination while in motion.

So I’ve long wanted to try the Lockpick 3, but I had some trepidation and resisted it for a while.

Why? Well, my research online seemed to indicate that Coastal tended to take a very long time to ship items and that their customer service was very unresponsive. Their web site certainly does not inspire confidence, as it looks very amateurish and not often updated. Recently, I had read about folks having some better experiences and I am tired of not having destination entry while in motion in my 2008 Prius.

Well I didn’t really try to utilize Coastal’s customer service, but they did ship the device promptly. I ordered the device on Sept. 16, got a UPS tracking number on Sept. 17, and received the device today, Sept. 25 via UPS Ground. Not bad at all.

The device came in simple packaging and the box also had instructions and a small bag of Jelly Bellies. The instructions looked simpler than I had imagined and so I went ahead and had at it.

It was easy. The nav unit in my Toyota Prius 2008 is under the driver’s seat. I grabbed a flashlight and pushed the seat back and removed the connector to the nav unit, pressing down a bit on the tab on top of the connector so that it slid out. Then plug that connector into one end of the Lockpick and plug the other end of the Lockpick into the nav unit. Start up the car and wait about 20 seconds for the nav unit to reload firmware. Then I went for a drive and noted that the destination entry screen has a new pin icon in the top left. By default, destination entry is still grayed out while in motion but pressing and holding the pin icon for a second or two causes the destination entry to unlock. After you’re done entering a destination, it automatically locks again. This is actually an important feature, because the Lockpick works by making the nav unit think that the vehicle’s speed is zero. The nav unit uses a combination of GPS and that vehicle’s speed to determine position. So when the Lockpick is unlocking, the nav unit is not getting the proper speed input and so the nav unit’s impression of where you are drifts off. After destination entry is complete, the nav unit now gets the proper speed and it takes a minute or two for the nav unit to get its bearings. At some point, the nav unit showed me on the map as essentially driving through the bike trail around the corner from us (an all-green area on the map)! It took the nav unit a minute or two to get the right location. I hope that this doesn’t turn out to be too big of a problem in practice.

So all in all, I’m pretty pleased.