We recently moved from a server in the United States to an Australian based server. During the transition a few things got broken. I’m not sure if anyone actually noticed but Anti-Squish’s score server was down for almost two weeks, oops!
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Posted in Devblogs.
By Benjamin Dobell
– November 5, 2011
It’s been several weeks since I pushed the source code for Heimdall Suite 1.3.1 to Github but I’ve finally got around to uploading binaries. Not to say that I wasn’t trying. It’s almost as if Apple went out of their way to make it ludicrously difficult for me to make a release utilising OS X Lion. Qt 4.7 doesn’t technically support OS X Lion and Apple have totally dropped support for PowerPC, Tiger and Leopard.
I’m sure the details aren’t really of all the much interest to you non-developer folk, so I’ll save you all from boring details. However, I should probably save other developers from going through what I had to. If I get a chance a separate blog post that details how to get a cross-compiling environment up and running on OS X Lion is definitely in order.
Apple-specific issues aside…
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Posted in Devblogs.
By Benjamin Dobell
– October 9, 2011
After a short beta testing period over at the XDA Developers forums, Heimdall 1.3.0 (an enormous update) is now ready for release. However, on top of this, I’ve somehow finally managed to find some time to release the somewhat illusive Anti-Squish graphical update. Anti-Squish is my little casual Android game. Up until recently it’s had some pretty terrible programmer art created by none other than the incredibly untalented “me”. But a big thanks goes out to Amora Leite who has totally revamped the graphical side of things. The new graphics look absolutely fantastic!
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Posted in Android, Anti-Squish, Devblogs, Heimdall.
Tagged with Android, Anti-Squish, Galaxy S, Heimdall, Open-Source.
By Benjamin Dobell
– July 28, 2011
I’ve just finished uploading the Heimdall 1.2.0 command line binaries. The 1.2.0 release doesn’t contain any Heimdall Frontend updates however Heimdall Frontend 1.1.1 is forwards compatible and works fine with the 1.2.0 command line binaries.
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Posted in Devblogs.
By Benjamin Dobell
– June 2, 2011
Version 1.1.1 of the Heimdall Suite was just recently released. The changes are fairly minor, unless you own a Galaxy Tab there is no need to upgrade immediately. However, installation, compilation and packaging has been greatly simplified with this release.
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Posted in Devblogs.
By Benjamin Dobell
– December 28, 2010
I’ve finally finished compiling, packaging and uploading the various releases of Heimdall 1.1.0 and the new Heimdall Frontend 1.1.0, collectively Heimdall Suite 1.1.0. This release is much more comprehensive than the previous release. As usual we’re distributing Windows and OS X binaries however the installation process is much more user friendly for both of these platforms. It takes a whooping 4 hours or so to compile Qt, so we figured it is also about time we start making Linux packages available directly from our website. Unfortunately we only have access to a limited number of Linux systems and the 4+ hour build process means it’s slow going. Right now we’ve only got AMD64 debian packages up. At least that small demographic is nicely covered 
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Posted in Devblogs, Heimdall, Projects.
Tagged with C++, Development, Firmware, Flashing, Galaxy S, Heimdall, Linux, OS X, Release, Source code, Windows.
By Benjamin Dobell
– December 4, 2010
I just got around to releasing the Lite edition of Anti-Squish. So if you’re unsure about Anti-Squish and you would like to give it a go you can download the Lite edition for free. The Lite edition includes one full game mode, Rush. At present the Lite edition doesn’t include any ads, and if possible we’d like to keep it that way. If you’re a casual gamer and you like to try before you buy then now is your chance, here’s a direct market link for those of you browsing on an android phone.
Posted in Android, Anti-Squish.
Tagged with Android, Anti-Squish, Apps, Java.
By Benjamin Dobell
– November 18, 2010
We’ve just published our first Android app, Anti-Squish!
Anti-Squish is a simple touch controlled casual game. The goal is to score points by helping flies starting on the left or right side of the screen safely make their way across to the opposite side. With flies appearing all over the place be careful to make sure they don’t collide, and of course make sure they don’t get SQUISHED!
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Posted in Android, Anti-Squish.
Tagged with Android, Anti-Squish, Apps, Java.
By Benjamin Dobell
– November 13, 2010
The iDroid Project is an effort to port Linux (and hence Android) to iOS-based devices, e.g. the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and (most recently) the Apple TV family. It is making progress in great strides, with computer-less installation being the latest breakthrough.
Getting Linux to run on the device is only half the battle, though. Drivers must be written for the audio system, the touchscreen, the wireless, the accelerometer, Bluetooth, etc. Given the dearth of publicly available data sheets on iOS-based device internals, the design of these drivers must be derived from the disassembly of iOS’ own drivers. Therein lies the challenge.
iOS is an OS X derivative, as Apple likes to claim. This means that it makes use of IOKit-based kernel extensions (“kexts”) to interact with hardware. However, unlike its desktop sibling, such kernel extensions are nowhere to be found on the (jailbroken) iOS filesystem. This is because iOS uses a prelinked kernel — for speed reasons and perhaps even to obfuscate its own internal workings.
Developers in the iDroid Project team have developed a work-around for this, but its not without its short-comings. The parsing process takes several hours (!) and is not amenable to significant changes in the drivers, i.e. adding / removing bytes. This is where we’ve started work.
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Posted in iPhone.
By Aidan Steele
– November 10, 2010
So, I’ve just released the first official version of my cross-platform open source Galaxy S firmware flashing software, known as Heimdall. I previously made several alpha and beta releases over at the XDA developers forums but this is the first official release. A big thanks goes out to all of you over at the XDA developers forums who tested Heimdall whilst it was in the early alpha/beta stages of development.
So what exactly does firmware flashing software do? Well, it enables you to upload any firmware, official or not, to your Galaxy S device. In the past those who have wanted to upgrade their device or flash custom firmware have been forced to do so via Samsung Kies or Odin. Both pieces of software only run on Windows and are closed source. Furthermore Samsung Kies is only meant for upgrading official firmware and Odin appears as though it is is leaked Samsung software not at all designed for consumer use.
The protocol used to flash firmware to the Galaxy S is provided by the secondary (second-stage) boot loader running on the device. The boot loaders on the Galaxy S appear to go by the collective name of Loke. Continuing on with the Norse mythology naming scheme (Odin and Loki) that Samsung appears to be using, I chose to name my software Heimdall. After the Norse god and guardian of the bi-frost bridge.
If you’re interested in the development then keep reading. If not, head over to the Heimdall product page, read the instructions and get to it!
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Posted in Heimdall.
Tagged with C++, Development, Heimdall.
By Benjamin Dobell
– October 13, 2010
