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I got curious today about the CA certificates present on my current phone, the Sony Xperia Z5 Compact (E5823), running Android 5.1.1.

It turns out it’s pretty easy to pull the CA certs from an Android device (even easier than before). Assuming you have adb set up and working with your device already:
$ adb pull /system/etc/security/cacerts cacerts

The certificates are now stored in standard PEM format, so they’re super easy to use in formats we want. I’m running an Ubuntu 15.10 system currently, so I’m using that as a baseline to ‘diff’ the Android CA certs against (using an admittedly cursory check to just match the first line of the cert):
$ for i in cacerts/* ; do if ! $(grep -q $(sed -n 2p $i) /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt) ; then echo $i ; fi ; done

This turned up a list of six root certificates trusted by my phone that aren’t trusted by my desktop:
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I recently tried to use the ELinks console-based web browser with Tor. I found what seemed to be the easiest way to this: torify elinks, but that turned into a journey down the rabbit-hole. (A wiser man than I likely would’ve just used the alternate method suggested there—privoxy—but for the next one of me who comes along, here’s what I found.)
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Having followed this guide to mounting a box.com account in linux, I tried rsyncing a bunch of photos to my account. It kept bombing out partway through, and subsequent attempts to resume the rsync would re-transfer the same files over and over again.

rsync: rename "/mnt/box/bwca/08/09/.IMG_3084_CR2_embedded.jpg.AigcyF" -> "08/09/IMG_3084_CR2_embedded.jpg": Input/output error (5)
rsync: rename "/mnt/box/bwca/08/09/.IMG_3085.CR2.SEk0pG" -> "08/09/IMG_3085.CR2": Input/output error (5)
rsync: mkstemp "/mnt/box/bwca/08/09/.IMG_3085_CR2_embedded.jpg.injOBG" failed: Permission denied (13)
rsync: mkstemp "/mnt/box/bwca/08/09/.IMG_3086_CR2.jpg.OzVzik" failed: Permission denied (13)

I haven’t solved the issue with rsync dying before the end of the transfer (it’s probably related to this syslog message: mount.davfs: open files exceed max cache size by 25 MiBytes), but I have at least solved the issue with re-transferring files over and over again with each subsequent attempt. The two answers were pretty straightforward, but I figured I’d post them anyway, for posterity’s sake.

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I wrote my initial review of the Motorola Admiral (my new phone) about three and a half days after getting my hands on it. I’ve been using the phone full-time for almost two weeks now, so wanted to follow up with a few other thoughts. You should definitely read the initial review above to put these additional notes into context.

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After nearly five years of using my trusty (Palm OS-based) Treo 700p (preceded by over three years with a Palm OS-based Treo 300, preceded by over a year with a Treo 180, etc…), I finally bit the bullet and moved to Android. I actually did pick up a used Samsung Moment (landscape QWERTY slider) off a friend a couple summers ago, but never activated it; pretty much all of my reference point for Android comes from that device, though (running a custom rom, rooted, Android 2.1). I wasn’t especially thrilled with the Moment for a few reasons, which convinced me it was alright to stick with my Treo for a while longer, and keep my eye on the market. A few months ago, there were some leaks about an upcoming portrait QWERTY device from Motorola on Sprint that was supposed to be pretty fancy, and even back then, I had pretty much made up my mind: this would be my next phone.

Details in subsequent leaks changed a little bit, and the rumored release date came and went without additional information, but at long last, the Motorola Admiral was released at the end of October. I was hoping to find some other reviews online right away, but they didn’t come immediately. A few people on forums ordered the devices promptly and answered a few questions, and someone posted a Youtube overview, but there wasn’t exactly a thorough review out. Nevertheless, I decided to pull the trigger, and ordered mine (requiring upgrading my plan to Everything Data) this past Wednesday. I was fairly impressed with Sprint’s customer service that got my plan changed and corporate discount applied over online chat with virtually no pain, and then I ordered the phone, and they had it to my door around noon the next day. Nice work, guys!

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In addition to hanging out a ton with existing friends, I also started meeting some new people. I joined OKCupid, at the recommendation of a friend, so met some folks that way (yes, it’s a dating site, and I did go on some dates, but didn’t really have the spark and excitement with any of those people that I need to date someone. I am happy to report that I am still friends with at least a couple people from there, though. Additionally, the fact that I was hanging out with everyone I knew meant that I met friends’ friends, too, including a few particularly noteworthy people: John K (met via high school classmate John B), Marta D (met via college friend Matt E), Rachael T (met via high school friend Courtney S), and Mary P (met via college friend Naomi K).

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Alright! I concede! I am never going to get this blog up to date at the rate I’m going / in the depth that I typically provide, so this is my compromise. I’m going to forgo looking back on email records, facebook messages, and photos, and just recap some of the major highlights that stick out in my memory, hazy though it may be. (Give me a break; this post starts with events that occurred over two years ago.)

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Introduction

Well, I’m on one of my weekly conference calls with some of our engineers in India, and don’t need to completely pay attention all the time, so I decided to start writing a little. But, rather than writing something substantial (like the very necessary continuance of my life update since I left off in spring 2007, I think), this entry is going to basically be a hodgepodge of a few things that are, or have recently been, on my mind.

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In case you’re just joining us, this post is a continuation of my first attempt to bring my blog up to date since my previous update left off in September, 2006 (about two years ago). I had to give up around 3 AM, and that only brought me through February, 2007 (five months), so I’ve still got a way to go. To pick up where I left off last night, I was explaining at the end of my post:

And at the very end of the month [Feb ’07], I apparently bit the bullet and bought the airplane tickets and hotel reservation for the vacation to Los Angeles, CA we planned for March.

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Wow … so I guess a lot has happened since the last time I wrote a personal entry in here. I could only begin to describe how daunting the task of trying to cover everything that’s happened since then is, and more than likely, I’m going to end up writing pages and pages of mundane details, while still managing to overlook major events. Such is the life of an infrequent blogger, though. As always, I feel somehow compelled to give a disclaimer at the beginning of my post: this is boring. You don’t want to read it. I write way too much, and you really don’t care enough to waste the next 15 (?) minutes of your life reading about my uninteresting one. Get out now, while you’re still ahead.

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