If anyone is interested the code is as follows

Private Declare Sub keybd_event Lib “user32″ (ByVal bVk As Byte, ByVal bScan As Byte, ByVal dwFlags As Integer, ByVal dwExtraInfo As Integer)

Private Sub tmrCapsRape_Tick(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles tmrCapsRape.Tick

Static Dim temp As Integer = 0

If temp Mod 2 = 0 Then
Call keybd_event(System.Windows.Forms.Keys.CapsLock, &H14, 1, 0)
Else
Call keybd_event(System.Windows.Forms.Keys.CapsLock, &H14, 3, 0)
End If

temp += 1
End Sub

Simple and genius.

Download below and comment with ideas, suggestions, questions, and requests!

Download

Feel Free to Donate and keep in mind that the requests of donors will always be honored!

Bookmark

The original iPhoneShop I made a while back to provide a GUI for extracting and repacking .artwork files. It utilized a .jar file (not made by myself) and simply generated .bat files to execute the .jar from command line with minimal user interaction. With the release of the iPhone firmware 2.0, the .artwork files have changed drastically and the old .jar file will no longer work with them.

Dave Peck has written a Python script to extract the new .artwork files on firmware 2.0. He’s given me his permission to create a GUI for the script (which at this time can only extract the files) and I went ahead and made one. If you’re lucky enough to have the 2.0 filesystem and you want to take a peek inside the new .artwork files, I present you with iPhoneShop 2.0!

As usual, the graphics used in this application were created by Allen of planet-iphones.com.

Download below and comment with ideas, suggestions, questions, and requests!

Download

Feel Free to Donate and keep in mind that the requests of donors will always be honored!

Bookmark

Download below and comment with ideas, suggestions, questions, and requests!

Download

Feel Free to Donate and keep in mind that the requests of donors will always be honored!

Bookmark

• When a repository is chosen, a ComboBox is populated with all of the packages found in said repository. Any package can be selected from that drop down list and information about it is displayed.
• For each package you can view the BundleID, Name, Sponsor, Location, etc. in simple text boxes (currently uneditable) without any of the confusion of XML around them.
• Another tab includes a built-in webbrowser that navigates to the “More Info” page of the current package.
• Another tab provides an easy to use interface to create a Debian APT control file for the current package (very useful if you are porting over 12,000 lines of Installer code to Cydia). Once created you have the option to save to desktop in one click or to browse to save.
• Yet another tab allows you to create a More Info PHP page for the current package. This part of RepoParser isn’t really useful to the mainstream because the PHP created is generated specifically for Planet-iPhones.com. Once made, you have the options to save to desktop, browse to save, or upload directly to Planet-iPhones via FTP! Of course, I’ve required a login and password for that section so that everyone can’t go hogwild and start uploading things to P-i with this :).

All in all, I’ve learned TONS with this application. I’ve learned how to create a Class that allows me to download any file from online with the click of a button (with live updates as it is downloading). I’ve learned how to parse huge repository files with speeds I thought to be impossible. I’ve honed my skills with reading and writing files and creating files and much much more. The next step for me is to start learning how to use VB.NET’s built in XML utilities to improve these applications even more.

As I said before, the XML files currently CANNOT be edited by RepoParser… I think that instead of teaching myself to do that the wrong way (IE not using the built-in XML utilities), I’m going to go ahead and learn them and start a new project that will be a full fledged RepoEditor/RepoMaker.

Download below and comment with ideas, suggestions, questions, and requests!

Download

Feel Free to Donate and keep in mind that the requests of donors will always be honored!

Bookmark

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Bookmark

There are tons of ways to do this but I believe I found the most efficient… It consists of only one line of code:

DateTime.UtcNow.Subtract(#1/1/1970#).TotalSeconds

If that beautiful little line of code is thrown into a function like so:

Function UnixTimeStamp() As Integer
Return DateTime.UtcNow.Subtract(#1/1/1970#).TotalSeconds
End Function

It provides a very easy way to call UnixTimeStamp() from anywhere in your program to receive the current UNIX timestamp from your system time.

It’s worth mentioning that this little function does not take timezones into account so you will have to add code to do so yourself. For example, if you are in Eastern Standard Time (UTC-5), you could modify the function like so:

Function UnixTimeStamp() As Integer
Return DateTime.UtcNow.Subtract(#1/1/1970#).TotalSeconds - 18000
End Function

You don’t really need an example application for this snippet of code but, nonetheless, I’ve included the source (in both vb.net and .txt forms) and a standalone .exe for a simple application that, when launched, displays the current UNIX timestamp and a refresh button to update the timestamp.

Download VB.NET 2008 Source Code

View VB.NET 2008 Source Code in .txt format

Download the standalone .exe

Bookmark

MD5 Checksums are used frequently to verify both the validity of files and to check for corruption after large downloads or uploads. There are several free applications for Windows that can calculate the MD5 Checksum of a file though I wanted to be able to make myself an application customized for my own use.

You will need to import a few .NET Classes to get started:

Imports System.Security.Cryptography
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Text

IO is used to manage loading the files in and out of your application. Cryptography will retrieve the raw MD5 Hash and Text will append it. Of course, you don’t need to import any of these but it will clean up your code and is a good programming practice.

You now need to select the file you wish to run the MD5 algorithm on. If you are building an application that will always be checking the MD5 of the same file in the same place, this is very simple. However, this is usually not the case.

Dim o As OpenFileDialog = New OpenFileDialog
Dim temp As String
Dim path As String

o.Filter = “.zip Files|*.zip|All Files|*.*”
If (o.ShowDialog() = DialogResult.OK) Then
path = o.FileName

This snippet of code creates an OpenFileDialog and declares temp and path (temp will be used later on). The OpenFileDialog is then showed and if the user successfully selects a file it is set to path. The rest of the coding will be done in this If/Then block to avoid attempting to run the MD5 algorithm on an incorrect or nonexistent file.

The o.Filter can be used if you want only certain types of files to be visible in the file browser. The way o.Filter is set in my example, .zip Files and All Files will be selectable from the drop down list. It is quite simple to customize the o.Filter to your desire or simply omit it altogether.

We will now get the raw MD5 checksum of our file with the following code:

Dim fs As FileStream

fs = New FileStream(path, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read, 8192)

Dim md5 As MD5CryptoServiceProvider = New MD5CryptoServiceProvider

md5.ComputeHash(fs)

fs.Close()

Here we create a new FileStream for our previously selected file and use the built in MD5CryptoServiceProvider to compute the raw hash of our file. We end by closing the FileStream so the file can be accessed by other programs and the user.

We will now use the StringBuilder class to append our string and format it correctly:

Dim hash As Byte() = md5.Hash
Dim buff As StringBuilder = New StringBuilder
Dim hashByte As Byte
For Each hashByte In hash
buff.Append(String.Format(”{0:X2}”, hashByte))
Next

temp = buff.ToString()

We now have our MD5 Checksum stored to temp! By default it is in all caps… This may be suitable in your situation but i need lower case. This is as simple as:

return temp.ToLower

And there you have it! For those of you that don’t like to read and understand things for yourself here is a fully working function.

Imports System.Security.Cryptography
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Text

Function MD5Checksum(ByVal path As String) As String
Dim temp As String

Dim fs As FileStream

fs = New FileStream(path, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read, 8192)
Dim md5 As MD5CryptoServiceProvider = New MD5CryptoServiceProvider
md5.ComputeHash(fs)
fs.Close()

Dim hash As Byte() = md5.Hash
Dim buff As StringBuilder = New StringBuilder
Dim hashByte As Byte
For Each hashByte In hash
buff.Append(String.Format(”{0:X2}”, hashByte))
Next

temp = buff.ToString()

Return temp
End Function

You will need to call this function in one of two ways:

MD5Checksum(”C:\MyFile.ext”)

In that case, you know exactly where the file you want is… if you want to browse for the file, you can use this:

Dim o As OpenFileDialog = New OpenFileDialog
Dim path As String

If (o.ShowDialog() = DialogResult.OK) Then
MD5Checksum(o.FileName)

Feel free to download the source code to the MD5 Demo App I’ve created below! Note: I use VB.NET 2008 so you will not be able to view the source on anything below 2008. I’ve added a download link for a .txt document of the source code so you can view it if you have VB.NET 2005 or lower. And of course, you can download the standalone .exe and just use the program!

Download VB.NET 2008 Source Code

View VB.NET 2008 Source Code in .txt format

Download the standalone .exe

Bookmark

RepoMaker is the biggest app I have made to date. It was also one of the first I started and I learned the most from it. At first it was designed to basically get you on your feet concerning making Installer.app Repositories for the iPhone but it then started to grow into a fully featured repository editor. Currently it has some documentation for starting a repository and a GUI for adding packages and starting the mainframe. The only downside to this is that you need to paste the code into your XML file manually. I am in the middle of a IO Filestream project that would allow it to parse and modify a repository.XML file through a GUI but I ran into some minor problems and lost interest.

As of now it can read a repository.XML file and gather a drop-down list of the packages. When a package is selected the properties of that package are displayed in modifiable text boxes. However, the actual installation script has TONS of problems when it is modified and even the simple properties have some problems when they are modified. If people were interested in me finishing this application I would certainly pursue it but otherwise what you see is what you get.

Also, the MD5 Checksum script in RepoMaker has a little problem… It doesn’t work. I used X1 to encode instead of X2 and it ends up missing some numbers (0s and 1s). If you are using it you will have to generate your own MD5 Checksums as this does not generate them properly. Or you could ask me to fix it as it would not take long at all (I have working MD5 Checksum code in my other apps).

As usual, the graphics used in this application were created by Allen of planet-iphones.com.

Download below and comment with ideas, suggestions, questions, and requests!

Download

Feel Free to Donate and keep in mind that the requests of donors will always be honored!

Bookmark

Credit to the .jar file goes to the creators though I don’t believe the project is still being pursued.

As usual, the graphics used in this application were created by Allen of planet-iphones.com.

Download below and comment with ideas, suggestions, questions, and requests!

Download

Feel Free to Donate and keep in mind that the requests of donors will always be honored!

Bookmark

Service Controller manages the Apple Mobile Device service and provides an easy-to-use GUI for stopping, starting, and restarting the service. It also has buttons for killing and starting the iTunes.exe process. I needed this application because, for whatever reason, every time a program put my iPhone into restore mode (iTunes during restores, WinPwn during Pwnage, iLiberty during jailbreaks) my computer would stop recognizing my iPhone until all programs using the service were killed and the service was restarted. I was tired of running “services.msc” every time I wanted to restart it so I threw this together.

As of right now it is a standalone .exe file and I don’t really think any more use can come from it (though, as always, I am open to ideas).

It’s also worth mentioning that the Service Controller icon (along with pretty much all of the images in my applications) was created by Allen of planet-iphones.com.

Download below and comment with ideas, suggestions, questions, and requests!

Download

Feel Free to Donate and keep in mind that the requests of donors will always be honored!

Bookmark