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Video Catcher for Android

Renaud — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:05:07 +0000

Want to download videos instead of playing them ? Missing the “download” option for video links ? Video Catcher is the way to go !

Android browsers don’t let you download videos but offers instead to play them with whatever installed for. With Video Catcher, take the control back !

Please note that the application comes with no icon/launcher, this is like a plugin to your browser : just click on a video link, and when the “Action” menu appears, select “Video Catcher” as handler : the download will be transfered to your phone’s download manager.

Some mobile enabled examples :

If you can play them, you can download them !

—- FAQ —-

Q: How can I download a video from the browser ?
A: In the browser simply click on the video link that you wish to download. From the Action menu, select Video Catcher, and the download should start automatically. You should be able to see the download progress in the notification bar (at the top of the screen).

Q: Where are stored my downloads ?
A: Downloads are stored into your “Download” directory (/mnt/sdcard/Download). For 2.3 and above, downloads are handled by the phone’s download manager application.

Q: Can I download YouTube or Flash movies ?
A: No, you can download only regular and/or HTML5 video, and not movies embedded in Flash player. Please use TubeMate or similar app instead.

If you need any help, please send me an email !

Video Catcher

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Native Android Development

Renaud — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 06:52:51 +0000

Starting from revision 5 of their NDK, Google added a (very usefull) script to build a standalone toolchain, i.e which works without having to deal with specific setup scripts (ndk-build and so on). Make, configure, and autoconf are now welcome !

First of all, download and uncompress the NDK :

$ mkdir Android && cd Android
$ wget http://dl.google.com/android/ndk/android-ndk-r5b-linux-x86.tar.bz2
$ tar xf android-ndk-r5b-linux-x86.tar.bz2

Now, we’ll build the standalone toolchain, for example, for the Gingerbread API (level 9) :

$ ls
android-ndk-r5b
$ export NDK=`pwd`/android-ndk-r5b
$ chmod +x $NDK/build/tools/make-standalone-toolchain.sh
$ $NDK/build/tools/make-standalone-toolchain.sh --platform=android-9 --install-dir=$NDK/.standalone/android-9-toolchain

That’s it ! The toolchain binaries do not depend or contain host-specific paths, in other words, they can be installed in any location, or even moved if you need to. Now, you just need to set your environment :

$ export PATH=$NDK/.standalone/android-9-toolchain/bin:$PATH
$ export CC=arm-linux-androideabi-gcc

Ok, now, let’s do our first build :

$ cat helloandroid.c
#include 
int main(void)
{
    printf("Hello Android !\n");
    return 0;
}
$ $CC -o helloandroid helloandroid.c
$  file helloandroid
helloandroid: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), not stripped

And burn it into your device :

$ adb push helloandroid /data/
115 KB/s (3324 bytes in 0.028s)
$ adb shell chmod +x /data/helloandroid
$ adb shell /data/helloandroid
Hello Android !

Huuurraa !

For lazy peoples (like me), I wrote a litlle script which will automatically build the desired toolchain (if needed) and set your path accordingly :

$ ./set-toolchain.sh android-9
Forking a new shell...
$PATH =  /home/renaud/Android/android-ndk-r5b/.standalone/android-9-toolchain/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
$CC =  arm-linux-androideabi-gcc

Enjoy !

GNU HTTP Tunnel for S60

Renaud — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 23:22:31 +0000

Here’s the story :

I subscribed, few weeks ago, to an “unlimited data plan” from my mobile provider. I was so enthusiast that I sold my old Nokia N70 (Symbian OS8) on Ebay to buy an expensive Nokia E90 (OS9), infinitively more adequate for heavy use of www and networking applications.

I quickly discovered “what’s under the hood” : this “unlimited” data plan is restricted to HTTP traffic on port 80 by use of proxy filtering that mean no IMAP, no POP, no VNC, no SSH, nor TELNET…

Moreover, there’s an extra filtering on User-Agent to (loosely) prevent its use from your computer by using the phone as modem for example.

I quickly had to found a solution, and the only one available was Tunneling, more precisely HTTP Tunneling, since writing Tun/Tap drivers on Symbian platforms is not possible without manufacturer’s SDK. After some Googling, I found the GNU HTTP Tunnel under GPL license.

Thanks to port of Posix libraries on Symbian OS9 (P.I.P.S), the porting of the project to S60 tooks less than 48h. The most difficult parts were :

No poll() function
Small heap/stack
lack of console

The first point was solved by replacing poll() functions by select(), using threading as workaround to limitations due to implementation :

“select operation cannot be called for the second time on the same socket descriptor before the first select operation on the same socket descriptor completes. (i.e) Only one select operation can be outstanding on a Socket. This is because of the limitation of the underlying Ioctl Ioctl operation. Only one operation may be outstanding for each socket.”

The second point involved reducing size of local arrays, and by increasing default heap/stack size of application using correct statements in mmp file.

Concerning the lack of console, I used stdioserver as output console, and Python for passing command line.