I usually spend my free time building things or taking them apart. (These things are usually software.) However, this summer, I’ve decided to relax and take a break from all this computer stuff, leaving everything from programming to Twitter to Party poker to you people. I have decided to “experience” one hundred different stories. What do I mean by that? I will read books, watch movies, play games, etc. One hundred in all. After each one, I will collect my thoughts and write a short review on it. If you’re still interested, let’s go dive right into it.
Kindle 3.2.1 Jailbreak
UPDATE: Serge A. Levin has kindly modified my “temporary” jailbreak into a more permanent solution. The information below is now considered old and should be disregarded. Link to jailbreak for all devices on all versions.
Kindle 3.X updater for Kindle 2 and Kindle DX released
After a month and a half of testing thanks to the community of MobileRead, I can finally release the first stable version of the Kindle 3.X software updater (help me come up with a better name, please). If you haven’t read my last few Kindle-related posts (read them if you want more technical details of this script), you should know that this allows you to use all the cool new features of the Kindle 3 on a K2 or DX device. Installation is easy and is only three steps: 1) Use “prepare-kindle” script on old Kindle to back up and flash recovery kernel, 2) Copy generated files to Kindle 3 along with “create-updater” script and run it, 3) Copy generated update package back to old Kindle and restart. If that sounds confusing, don’t worry, the readme contains very detailed directions and even how to recover in case anything goes wrong. Speaking of recovery, a “side effect” of using this is that the custom kernel that you flash in order to run the update package allows recovering without a serial cable and the installation of unsigned recovery packages.
Porting Kindle 3.1: Part 3 – Update packaging script
Not much to say. Basically, this script will run on the Kindle, and along with the “md” binary I wrote last time, it will generate the headers to the correct size and add the tar.gz update package in.
Recovering a formatted or corrupt Kindle 2
One day, while playing around with a Kindle 2, I accidentally deleted the /lib folder. Oops. Now, no command beyond “ls” and “rm” work. If this was a computer, I could have simply inserted a installation DVD and copied the files over, but this was an eBook reader, and I was in for a world of pain. This was a month ago, and I’ve finally recovered the Kindle. I’m posting what I did online to save anyone else who’s in the same boat a ton of time. This tutorial is only designed for the Kindle 2, but it MAY work for the DX. It will NOT work for the Kindle 3, but directions should be similar.