CommsBlog

Dear Avid Reader,

Despite the superb performance of my Landy in the snow, the poor beast fell foul of that terrible affliction… human error.

It seems that I simply cannot remember to turn off the headlights when getting out of it on a cloudy day (or at dawn/dusk).

In order to save the embarrassment of having the guys at the office try to bump-start it (with a completely flat battery), or the ignominy of being jump-started by a Nissan Micra (yes… it happened), I developed a simple circuit using an old relay and a cheap buzzer in order to stop this happening again.

If you want to check wiring colours for your Land Rover, look at my Manuals page [here]

 

As you can see, the Relay being in a ‘Normally Closed’ position would make the buzzer sound all the time the lights are on, but the power from the ignition opens the relay and stops the buzzer sounding. When you turn off the ignition and remove the key, the relay closes, and if the lights are still on, the buzzer sounds.

This isn’t complicated, but boy does it save some hassle.

Now… the next thing to do is build this into as small a package as possible, and determine the least intrusive way of connecting the 3 wires to the Land Rover without having to dismantle the dashboard!

After procuring a simple NC relay (courtesy of the local Motor Factors), I planned the connections out as follows:-

I then soldered some wires onto the buzzer, and crimped connectors onto all the cables as you can see. The reason for using a ‘NC’ (Normally Closed) relay, is that when then ignition is in the ‘on’ position, the relay is charged, and the contacts open. Therefore breaking the connection and stopping the buzzer from sounding. When you turn off the ignition, the buzzer will sound if there is power to the bottom leg of the relay (labeled ‘Lights+’ above). Therefore If the lights are off, no power = no buzzer, and if the ignition is on, open-contacts = no buzzer.

Next, I needed to connect it to the wiring in my Landy (which as you can see, is a bit archaic!) – On my ex-Military model, the Blue/Black wire is live when the main headlamps are on (I didn’t want the buzzer for side-lights, just in case I wanted to park it on a lane and leave those on). The earth was snagged from a screw into the bulkhead (where most of the relays seem to be earthed anyway!), and the Ignition live was derived from a spare spade connector on the Ignition barrel. You can probably find your particular wiring diagram [here]

Job’s a good ‘un – Buzzer sounds now if I leave the headlamps on with the ignition off.

 

 

Dear Avid Reader,

Yes it’s that time of year when we eat too much, drink too much and have unnecessary arguments with relatives over the pitiful TV that they laughingly call entertainment.

As one of my readers, you’re probably going to be in receipt of a number of gadgets, gizmo’s and techno-treats this year (despite the death of the British Pound according to my friend HERE)

The question is… what do you do with all your old tech? Well here are some ideas of how you could repurpose that equipment:-

 

Laptop’s

Despite your apparent need for 4Gb’s of RAM and Quad-core processing, that old laptop of yours seemed blisteringly fast a couple of Christmas’s ago… so what happened? Well ‘you did’ apparently… Most PCs and Laptops just get slower due to lots of unnecessary software, media and temporary files. Of course at this point you already have a nice new shiny one, so why don’t you format the hard-drive on the old one (or use the recovery disks) and give it to your Nan or Grandad so they can Skype you? One useful idea is to put Ubuntu on it as there is then little danger of Trojans, Viruses or Malware infecting your poor unsuspecting (and unknowledgeable) Grandparents.

Ubuntu Installation Guide: [link]

 

Old Net-tops, Notebooks and Underpowered PC’s

There is an excellent article on LifeHacker.com that details how to create your own Media Center PC from an old computer [link] or you could even turn it into a NAS (Network Attached Storage device) for your home network for the purposes of Backup (Pictures etc), Media (Music, Films) or for downloading .torrent files etc. Again this is detailed in a nice article from LifeHacker [link]

 

Mobile/Cell Phones

Yes… we all need the latest iPhone or Android (obviously the latter if you are a proper tech-head!), but that Nokia or Samsung you use to use for making calls and sending texts is still a perfectly functional bit of kit. Here are some ideas for that too:-

• Stick a Pre-pay SIM in it (on a different network to your usual one), and put it in the boot of your car with a cigarette lighter charger for emergencies – e.g. Your phone is dead/lost/no signal and you have broken down.
• Stick a Pre-pay SIM in it, enable ‘fixed dialing only’ (A mechanism that only allows the phone to dial pre-configured numbers), and give it to your young children to put in their School bag. They can’t call anyone or play games on it, but again, in the case of an emergency or missing a School bus…
• Give it to Phone for Heroes – they use the sale of these old handsets to support the Help for Heroes charity

 

Televisions

Its patently ridiculous how many TV sets we are throwing away because they are Analog… You can purchase a Freeview box for about £20 and turn it into a Digital TV, so why not put it in the spare room for when the kids are home for Christmas or make sure that Granny can watch TV in the Kitchen and Bedroom?

If you still have no use for it, then take it to a charity shop as they can then use the proceeds to fund a good cause.

My Guide to Reusing old TV and HiFi equipment: [link]

 

Games Consoles

Its frightening how many games consoles end up at the local tip… Those old XBOX consoles are probably one of the most hackable devices out there. By making a minor internal modification with an xecuter chip, you can use XBMC (XBOX Media Center) software and turn your XBOX into a full-blown Music and Video media box. Marry this up with one of the old TV’s above, and you’ve created a Media box for your games room/summer house.

Installing XBMC on an XBOX: [link]

 

Surround-sound / All-in-one players

Well these are fantastic for enhanced the kids games-room – add one of these to their games console and they have a more immersive experience, and the volume levels tend to go down. Another good use for these is to add to the Media system detailed above and place in your Summerhouse/Shed for those garden parties. Its just a case of unwinding the speaker wires and you have a sound system in the Garden. Add an old Radio Receiver and you can pipe your favourite music station into the garden whilst sunbathing.

My Guide to Reusing old HiFi equipment: [link]

 

 

Hi All,

I’ve just upgraded my iPhone to 3.0 and was alarmed to see that to utilise Internet Tethering (which frankly, would be a ‘last resort’), I would need to pay O2 an additioanl £14.68 a month on top of my existing data connection!

Fear not humble iPhone users, there is a solution out there. Browse to this URL from Safari on the iPhone:-

http://www.iphone-notes.de/mobileconfig/

Select your country and carrier,  and download the Tethering profile (ignore the warning message)

Note: This doesn’t mean you get data for ‘free’, but if you already have a ‘data package’ it should be included within that, rather than paying a separate ‘Tethering’ charge (like O2 are trying to get you to do!)

When you go back into Settings, General, Network you will now see that the Internet Tethering is ‘Off‘ (as opposed to ‘set up’)

If you now tap on the “Internet Tethering“, you get a new screen that allows you to enable it

Just as a footnote – if you are wondering how I captured the screens on an iPhone, simply press the top power button and the home button at the same time, and the current screen is saved to the camera roll.

Last Update: 11th Jan 2009

Hi all,

As a developer I tend to install an awful lot of freeware, shareware and paid-for applications on my PC in order to assist me with the day-to-day development of applications.

However… over the years I have noticed a trend where Microsoft themselves release a lot of ”applets’ under the guise of “Microsoft Research”, “Technet” or “SysInternals” (www.SysInternals.com is now part of Microsoft Technet)

I have compiled a (not exhaustive, so please contribute) list of my favourite utilities and applications which are mainly from Microsoft (with a couple from other sources) that enhance Windows XP and Windows 2003. I haven’t tested them on Vista (as I still don’t use it!), but I suspect most of them will still work.

SysInternals Applets

• Process Explorer – A proper replacement for Windows Task Manager. This improved applet allows you to explore each process properly (instead of just showing 20 copies of RunDll32.exe like Windows Task Manager does!)

• FileMon – This shows all real-time file activity (with the ability to filter). Without this application I never would have fixed the album artwork issue I had on my Media PC (everything showed up as ‘The Searchers’ !!!)
• TCPView – This displays a list of all open TCP sockets, their destinations and the application that opened them. Essential for tracking trojan or malware infections.
• ADExplorer – Ideal lightweight tool for exploring Active Directory or LDAP servers. Fast, portable and free!
• BGInfo – Great applet for Server Installations. You can use this tool to display the configuration (machine name, IP address, MAC address + much more) as the desktop background. Great when you are using a KVM to access multiple machines.

Powertoys / Control Panel Tweaks

• Sequoia View – An excellent tool for visualising the contents of your hard disk (and where all the space went!)
• ClearType Tuning Control Panel – ‘Tunes’ the ClearType fonts to make them work with your LCD Display
• Command Prompt Here – Add’s an ‘Open Command Prompt Here’ option to Explorer’s right-click menu
• TweakUI – this is the ultimate Windows XP powertool, letting you change *lots* of system settings…

Fun Stuff & Utilities

• Webcam Timershot – Takes a picture of from your Webcam and saves it to your hard disk at preset intervals
• Virtual PC – Lets you run Windows, Linux or even Windows Server on your PC as a ‘Virtual Machine’
• Zune Desktop Theme – Get a nice tidy ‘Black’ look to your Windows XP desktop
• Mount ISO’s – This applet works like Daemon Tools, allowing you to mount an ISO as a virtual CD Rom drive

System Application/Applet Replacements

• Notepad2 – Everything that Notepad should have been! Line numbers, syntax highlighting, plus much more…
• 7Zip – Everything that PKZip used to be…. the ultimate Zip/unzipper, and even supports all those nasty .gz and .tar unix formats as well!
• PuTTY – Forget Hyperterminal, PuTTY is a *tiny* Telnet application that also supports SSH, Serial and just about every terminal type you will need. Ideal to put on your USB key.
• UltraVNC – This is a cross-platform remote control application that works in the same manner as PCAnywhere or GoToMyPC, except it’s ‘Free’, fast and works with all the VNC protocols. This means you can effectively control a Linux box from Windows (and visa-versa) or even your server from a mobile phone!

I will be updating this list periodically, but please feel free to comment with some more suggestions!

Paul.

Hi All,

I’ve had my trusty Samsung i600 for some time now, and I feel that I finally have it working to the point where everything I actually use is now installed on it!

So, here are my top 10 downloads / purchases for the i600

1. Windows Mobile 6

Yes, if you bought your phone a while ago, then you definately need Windows Mobile 6. It’s faster, more stable, and has a few new features. You can upgrade this yourself on the Samsung website, or (if like me) if you have Orange UK, follow my guide [here]

2. SDA_ApplicationUnlock.exe [sda_unlock Download]

This smart little applet allows you to run ‘unsigned’ applications on your Windows Mobile device. Obviously care should be taken, but generally, as long as you know what you are doing, all should be fine. I’ve tested this unlocker on the HTC Touch, HTC Touch Diamond and the Samsung i600 without any issues.

3. BirdieSync (commercial, but worth it!) [http://www.birdiesync.com/]

This applet basically crowbar’s itself into Microsoft’s ActiveSync, and thereby allows you to syncronise your Windows PocketPC / Smartphone with Thunderbird. Not only will it sync emails &  contacts, it will also sync with Sunbird and Lightning! Well worth the €19

4. Google Maps [www.google.com/gmm] (See item 10 as well!)

Ok… I know that i600 doesn’t have GPS built it, but as a ‘quick hack’, you can use an external GPS mouse, and armed with Google Maps, get a rudimentary Sat Nav. Obviously there are limitations dues to download speeds, and of course data costs need to be taken into consideration, but as a stop-gap this works well.

5. Ilium Software’s Screen Capture [http://www.iliumsoft.com]

This great little application allows you to take screen shots of your Windows Mobile device for inclusion in Blogs (I use it here a lot) or just for tech support purposes.

6. Mobile Registry Editor [Mobile Registry Editor Download]

This is probably one of the best registry editors for Mobile devices that I have come across. It runs on your PC (rather than the device), and uses ActiveSync as a conduit to access the registry. It’s fast, and easy to use. What more do you need?

7. BTCrawler [btcrawler-v110-beta Download]

This tool allows you to go a bit of Bluejacking on your Windows Smartphone or Pocket PC. The author of this software (http://www.silentservices.de) had to withdraw it after Germany brought in anti-hacking laws. Unfortunately some useful tools, such as this, suddenly became illegal. In any case, you can download it here (among other places), and it is great for diagnosing issues with handsfree kits etc.

8. BTARouter – Commercial [http://www.chartcross.co.uk/]

This commercial application (costs about £5) allows you to route all the Audio from your mobile device (MP3′s, games etc) into your Bluetooth headset.

9. Quickmark[http://www.quickmark.com.tw]

You will notice that there is a 2d ‘barcode’ on the home page of my blog – these are call QR Codes. You can see similar ones on other websites (I think Makezine used to have them…). The applet makes use of your Smartphone’s camera in order to ‘read’ the barcode. Once decrypted, it will then give the the ability to visit the site (for URL’s) or dial the telephone number. The applet is suprisingly fast (takes about 1/10th of a sec to pick up the details) and works flawlessly on my i600. Each screen capture is stored in the ‘My Documents’ folder on the mobile device as serialised BMP files, e.g. sshot000.bmp, sshot001.bmp etc.

10. GPS Test (Free) [http://www.chartcross.co.uk/]

This is a handy free took from Chartcross that gives you the means to test an external GPS mouse on your Windows mobile device.

Feel free to comment with more useful tools for us Windows Mobile 6 users!