Sideloading apps

While attempting to assist someone with getting apps loaded onto a Android TV Stick,  I ran into a slight problem.  A parental control pin was enabled, and I had no way of immediately getting in touch with the person.  In app configuring couldn’t be done without the pin, since the app wouldn’t launch without asking.  After some hunting to try to locate where the system stores whether the app has launched before, I had an idea.  Go in through adb, and try launching from the shell.  Lo and behold it worked, but still wouldn’t launch afterwards from the gui.  Doesn’t matter to me as the owner knows the PIN code.  I got what I needed to do done, and confirmed everything was working.  If anyone is interested the appropriate code to launch it through adbFire was located here.    A little massaging was needed since we already had an adb shell through adbFire, and voilà.  The app runs without a pin code.  Not an elegant solution since we need adb access to allow it to run every time without the PIN, but it’s functional for my needs.   As far as massaging the command, it was as simple as dropping “adb shell” from  the beginning.

Raspberry Pi 3 — Finally using it

Hello again,

It’s been a long time since an update has been posted here, however this will hopefully become a weekly thing.  Today, as it is the beginning of a new year, I am going to be pulling out a piece of neglected (at least in my life) tech.  I’ve had my RaspberryPi3 since shortly after its release, however never set anything up on it more than RetroPie since all my Pi2s are running media center’s and I have a dedicated PC running my MythTV setup.  That will soon change since i feel this board should have the needed horsepower to do something fun.  Already it has been run as a RetroPie system, however I am currently missing controllers (They vanished).   Maybe a portable game console would be a great addition to my collection, but I feel it should look good too.  The 7″ lcd screen I have works well with it, but i feel I am missing some necessary hardware to make it pop.  Maybe a 3-D printer is in my future for a custom printed case to hold it all together.  Keep watching this space for updates, which should be coming more frequently.