My Captivating Weekend!
Yes… Its a cheesy title, and I really can’t tell you if it’s true or not. Though I can tell you, I’m hooked on Android and the Samsung Galaxy S hardware. And I found maybe one or two things I enjoy from TouchWiz, but since I don’t have much in terms of fresh Android environments to work with, I wouldn’t know better.
Ok now that my rant is over, here are the couple apps so far that I’m watching or using to bring me back to an Android-esque interface.
- LauncherPro – brings back my App Drawer and brings the UI closer to the Android Stock feel/look.
- FlyScreen – Still feels buggy so I actually just removed it, but I plan to keep an eye on it. It’s a widget-able lockscreen. Hooray for Calendar Widget!
I know if you actually read the whole thing, you see that my biggest complaint is really I don’t like Apples rigid UI design being mimicked(Samsung), or their strict marketplace management(AT&T), and I miss seeing my Calendar from WM6(ok I didn’t say it before… but it’s true), otherwise I’m perfectly content with my assortment of random apps and comfortable phone. Oh and yes, I’m getting comfortable using the onscreen keyboard over a physical one. I still feel like I’m running slower and more carefully with it. Like running on smooth and wet concrete with old slicked shoes. You know you’re just asking to eat it badly.
Edited… Rant not needed.
Ouch… I skipped June and July…
Posted by Zaephor in Uncategorized on August 3, 2010
Well in my defense, I think every weekend since my last update I haven’t been all that sober…
For the 4th of July weekend we created a Floating Glowing Engraved Beer Pong Table. I think we’re missing some random keywords there, but it is awesome. That semester ended quite well, now I’m suffering through my first class of Java and finding that half the content I already know from C++.
I’ve moved almost all my stuff to a Rackspace Cloud image, DraconRose, NexLusus and Maedondias.com are all now on the same virtual image. Awesome, root access, new projects are appearing in my head… lol My learning Java and plans for writing my own frontend for Tech(car) are spawning some interesting ideas with my cloud image and dynamic syncing.
My running todo list as of now:
Tech:
- Setup SilverBox to be Tech’s Win7 Home Brain, BlackBox to be it’s Linux Home Brain and the Cloud to be it’s Internet Linux Brain. It’s mostly a MySQL structure and setup thing, then figuring out how to manage data across a collection of systems. The Internet Brain being an SQL DB that knows how to talk to all other brains(ok nodes… but I like brains… BRAINS!!!) as well as either it or the BlackBox being the master backup/clone of all SQL DBs from each brain. Wooo MySQL Replication! lol Assuming I can figure it out correctly. It’s just a project that’s going to take a while to conceptualize and ever write.
NexLusus.com:
- Get new Legion logo image
- Photoshop a new background for the Blog theme
- Finish/Redo the scheme in the forums, either to look awesome or to match the blog(not going well)
- Drag myself through the rest of my summer programming class…
Web Sites:
- Switching over to nginx since I dont wanna pay for more RAM since apache2 and mysql like to eat it all….
Car Related:
- Reinstall Garmin GPS, and hackup some OSK for it — OR dump Garmin for a while and buy iGuidance
- Setup rsync and wippien — It’s installed… but needs to be reconfigured, I think the carPC will get another reinstall
- Silence the SilverBox, tweak it’s power settings, add a DDWRT router to it(for WOL), and move it to new location — Got another DDWRT Router for it, modded it for AutoAP only to find that I can’t figure out how to get the scriptable-controlable version of AutoAP merged into the latest versions of DD-WRT, so I’ll get around to trying to use the old AutoAP firmware and just load some presets into the firmware incase of setting wipes.
- Pick up a 20/24pin PSU extension cable and hack it up with some switches and a project box for the car to power Tech while in the garage from a desktop power supply. Mostly simple, just dreading opening back up my dash to fix up some wiring. — Got the PSU cable… still dreading the effort and haven’t gotten around to it.
- I’ve started over my music DB with the SilverBox, so I need to dump my music from Tech and resync it all — Ahh…. yep still need to do this
Things I need:
- New phone, my Fuze is crying under my usage, still waiting to see if the HTC Desire is going ATT or not. Otherwise I think I’m going Samsung’s Captivate.
- New car battery, I’m told it doesn’t have many cranks left, but I don’t really wanna spend $100+ on a new better battery when my CarPC is showing me it works fine. As in it is turning on.
- My laptops sound doesn’t work… And I’ve run out of ideas on it, so I may end up just reinstalling Windows at some point to see if that helps.
O.o Really Google? My site is Malicious? Really?#fb
Posted by Zaephor in Uncategorized on April 20, 2010
So I go to check my email to grab some homework files. And I’ve gotten an email from Google!
“We recently discovered that some of your pages can cause users to be infected with malicious software. We have begun showing a warning page to users who visit these pages by clicking a search result on Google.com.”
WTF! Well I did notice some odd code in a couple places, so I’ve added a couple plugins to help fix the issue as well as have reuploaded the wordpress core and should have whatever Google claims I had here fixed. So… ignore the warning in FireFox/Google.
I think alot of these major companies just wanna dick with me lately, ATT, Google, etc…
iGPS-500 on Windows 7 x64 with ANY GPS software not working
So in my CarPC setup, all my drivers appeared good. All my GPS software(Garmin MobilePC, Microsoft Streets and Trips 2010[I <3 MSDNAA], so far) kept reporting that my USB connected iGPS-500 wasn’t successfully finding satellites, or if it was it was it detected like 1 or 2 and/or was sending gibberish to the computer(found some GPS/com testing program).
Disabled buffers and whatnot in device manager. I eventually gave up figuring Win7 x64 needed some additional drivers or program or something. I went back and tried the drivers from S&T 2010/2008/2007, well 2010 was the only one I had that had Win7/Vista drivers, and x64 at that. So I tracked down the drivers from Pharos. I actually managed to track down two revisions. It took me a while to stumble across the second link.
http://www.pharosgps.com/support/downloads/list_subcategory.asp?TYPE_ID=2&SUBTYPE_ID=35
and
http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/downloads.asp?ID=31
Well I got it loaded and device manager reported error code 10. I don’t know if anyone else is seeing it that has been having problems, but the second link actually has a link to an FAQ page regarding the error. Basically it means the adapter/cable is bad/incompatible.
My setup has many reused parts from the past. I had bought S&T a while back when it came with the iGPS-360, the bigger version of the 500. Bundled with that one was a single USB adapter cable, not the little thumbdrive-like nub you get with the iGPS-500. Well thanks to it being a thumbdrive-like nub, I can’t find it and have been using my iGPS-360′s cable instead. This is the cable’s third install, first was the backseat of a 1994 Ford Explorer, then a laptop-in-a-bag install in my Scion tC about 2 years ago, and now is in an actual in-dash install. It’s been pretty beat up so it’s likely needed to be replaced.
If the damn replacement adapter wasn’t $40 with an extension cable, I’d actually test and make sure that was the issue. Well way-back-when I’d also gotten a BT adapter for the iGPS-500 for use with my old ATT 8525… I’d just managed to loose the power cable up until this morning. ^.^ So I’m under the assumption the issue is a bad cable, but since I’ve given Bluetooth abilities to my install I’m just going to pull the adapter cable and setup the BT adapter for use in the car. I’ve already tested it with another system and GPS software and it found my backyard just fine.
Once class is out I’ll finish up swapping everything. I’ll also get some screenshots of everything too to add to all the pictures I’ve gotten so far of the install.
U-Verse Follow up and CarPC Updates!
Posted by Zaephor in Uncategorized on March 29, 2010
So after getting everything setup that night, I left for school. The internet was running flawlessly, the televisions were working just a gracefully. I was satisfied minus the moron, whose computer had identified itself as “EDMILLER” to the router they left me(for anyone checking their own network information).
Well after about an hour at school I start getting texts from my brother about the TVs all freezing and the internet going out. I find out my Dad had worked with ATT phone support to try and fix it, which doesn’t do anything more then remove my DMZ settings and start presenting all my computers with a “Router behind router warning” which no one else in the house knows how to respond to. I get home, press a couple buttons and my DMZ settings are back and the internet works, but the TVs still do not. My Dad arranges for a tech to come back the next night while I’m in class.
The new tech, despite me not being around, has already shown a great improvement over the other guy. My Dad repeats a few of the things the guy said to me which is quite literally a simplified version of the same networking theory that “EDMILLER” said was wrong and unquestionable. He also states that the work the other tech had done was apparently as fast as possible and probably lead to the issues with the TVs, he said that the original TimeWarner coax equipment wasn’t as high a quality as the U-Verse equipment requires so he went around and started upgrading the various splitters and rearranging the way the coax wires were connected to provide the path of least resistance.
Anyhow, the other night we finally found out that we can’t have more then 2 HD streams at a time… Me trying to watch Syfy, Mom and Dad trying to watch the movie channels and my brother watching HD On Demand… Yea… We’re seeing if this will become an issue since 3HD TVs and only 2 possible HD displays at a time, and DVRing HD channels would shrink this… 2HD and 2SD, really? WTF?
As for the CarPC updates… I’ve got the screen and PC into the car, with some wiring complications not realizing that the radio’s +12Constant cuts off under a couple extra more circumstances then expected… Didn’t know it cut off to begin with but it was expected. Anyhow, for pictures of where I’m at so far: FACEBOOK
UPDATE 4-9-2010 Related to ATT U-Verse: Well granted it’s 12:34AM, I didn’t decide this was worth writing another separate blog post, but my internet suddenly had gone offline. Went to check the modem and figured out that AT&T had rolled out a firmware update which resulted in knocking out my internet for about 20 minutes. Which was quite annoying while I’m trying to get drivers for the SilverBox for the car… >.<* This is actually one of my fears dealing with AT&T, for them to send out a firmware update to my modem and brick it while I’m away trying to get data from my fileserver or testing any of my projects. I wonder if I should see about upgrading the features in my firewall box in the house to be able to dynamically find it’s way back online in the event that AT&T decides to break something, like cracking neighbors WEP use an old dial up connection, or an emergency 3G cell phone.
My experience switching from TimeWarner to AT&T U-Verse “FIBER”
Posted by Zaephor in Uncategorized on March 23, 2010
The day started out nicely, was scheduled to sit here for them from 1PM-3PM, and got a call about 12:45 from Edward saying he’d be here about 1:30PM since he was coming from Fullerton. Made sense, so I started cleaning up some of the areas where I knew he’d be working ahead of time so it could be a bit more of a painless process.
Well… I’m guessing it’s against company policy, or he doesn’t like people, to let the customer assist in anything unrelated if it’s in the proximity. I can’t help him by opening access to the addict cover that is a thin piece of plastic that breaks all the time because I don’t want him to break it. Cool he doesn’t need help, I realize I’m bitching about him not letting me help, but dear god did he have to be an ass about it?
But whatever, I think I’m more irate with the lies he kept telling me, and then telling me I’m wrong when I try to correct him. Hell I’d also like to complain about his advice for the network… Aside from his arrogant attitude to someone who works with and tests this type of equipment and his 2WIRE networking recommendation.
Lie #1 – Your existing network cannot exist, if you wish to use our equipment. My home network is a bunch of dummy switches and wireless devices with a dedicated DHCP server on my firewall box. Basically he told me I couldn’t access the internet through this network and would have to make everything use his new modem/router he brought me as the boss. WTF?!
Truth #1 – If the entirety of my network is routed through a single DHCP firewall, granted it’s a bandwidth cap of that wire, but as far as his equipment is concerned I only connected a single computer that happens to pump alot of data. My 10.x.x.x based network CAN persist just by connecting my WAN connection to his router.
Response #1 – His response quite litterally was a “If you break it and we have to come out here, it’s a $55 charge to park my van out front, then it’s a $125 charge to fix the network because we basically charge like we have to replace it”. Love the “I onno if your right, but if your wrong, I’m'a charge you for it, it’s your gamble.”
Lie #2 – Your Logitech Harmony Universal 360 remote(s) are not compatible with our set top boxes. It’s just plain not possible, no questions, don’t contest, IT JUST DOESNT WORK! I get he just wanted to leave by this point. But just like in science, there’s no such thing as something like this being 100% absolute. It’s an IR remote… Really dude?
Truth #2 – ITS AN IR REMOTE! There’s no reverse authentication, it sure as hell isn’t RF, it’s a BLINKING FUCKING LIGHT! The Logitech Harmony remotes have the ability to learn from their host’s remotes via the IR receiver in the back just incase the remote isn’t already in the database.
Response #2 – This response made me start laughing, “The reason other remotes can’t be programmed to this is because our remotes have far more functions” WAIT, WHAT?! The Logitech has a screen with a huge number of programmable functions, you mean your wimpy little 48 button remote is far more complex then my ~$100 usb programmable with Help display remote? OMG THATS AMAZING! Yes… I’m thrilled.
Lie #3 – The best setting for your new modem’s wireless network is just to leave it on default. Here is your password and the SSID.
Truth #3 – Anyone know how to use BackTrack correctly? It cracks WPA-PSK right? Y’know, the default setting they’re leaving it on and then recommending I use their equipment instead of my own secure system.
Response #3 – He tells me it’s the best setting and best password that I should never change because if I hit the reset button it’ll default back to that if I’d changed it. Please hack me…
The phone call to billing to correct my mother’s name.
We figured out that somehow down the line, someone at ATT decided my mom had a name change, “Jill” had just become “Jo” so a quick call to ATT billing should fix this right? RIGHT?! Well ok, I got it fixed, after hell trying to explain the situation to the person. “Hey ya there was a typo somewhere along the lines for the account holder of our new UVerse sign up, it should be set to Jill not Jo.” Soo the next logical response is “Then who’s Jo?” -.-*
I’m not sure how ATT got this gold star they were bragging about from the door to door sales reps about two weeks ago, but apparently those door to door reps are the only ones with any logic or understanding of what’s going on. I expected the Tech to at least have a true understanding… Hats off to sales, I feel duped.
CarPC Updates
So I apparently can’t keep this thing updated more then once a month… lol
Most recent updates for my setup pretty much are:
- Modifications to Xenarc 705TSV complete… and failed >.<
- Ordered a premodded Lilliput EBY701 –Which arrived with 2 stuck/bright pixels just south of the center, trying to get mp3car to replace it
- Ordered an Alpine MRP-F300 to power my 4 midrange speakers and am just going to use the stock amp from the sub to tend to the sub. Maybe upgrade that in the future
- Once the amp arrives and I can properly determine where it will be mounted, I’m praying to fit it under a seat, inwhich case the computer remains in the dash, but if I can’t fit it there and/or there are temperature issues, I’ll have to tear apart the car and rerun the speakers and whatnot to the trunk, and if i’m back there anyway the computer will go as well.
- Still need to get a project box to mount the computer in/to, if it’s in the trunk I may make a custom-acrylic window or something and mount it opposite to the sub with some LEDs and whatnot.
As for the Silverbox(old jukebox system, renamed and repurposed. This will be moved into another room closer to the garage/driveway and will be the server/host component to the carpc, likely my bedroom)
- Needs new fans — MicroCenter was out of Noctua fans, which are the quietest I’ve ever worked with(going to end up in bedroom with old 7inch touchscreen)
- Needs new PSU — The existing one is quite loud, painfully inefficient, and is probably the primary reason this thing is so loud. If I upgrade it to a dc-dc PSU I have more room to work with the Noctua fans without having to come up with a different case.
I have alot of work, also need to make sure the spare bluetooth modules I have will work fine with everything, as well as come up with an automatic SYNC system between the Silverbox and CarPC, and my phone. Using Wippien between the two I may enable the ability to keep them synced so long as I find a random hotspot or friends house. So new music may always be added or any new software I may try to write may automatically be installed/transferred.
AionRunnerSlim v.2 Notes
Posted by Zaephor in Projects, Research, Uncategorized on February 19, 2010
So… I’m in a VB class, I’ve attended one orientation day, and half of a day that seemed focused around how to use the Visual Studio Professional 2008 Toolbox. That and how to save a file. I wasn’t feeling well that day so I left early, now I’m on a second revision of a program I call AionRunnerSlim. It’s an 85% opacity application that is set to always on top that can be constantly running while playing the MMO Aion.
It taps into Griffon Knight‘s AionAPI XML system for grabbing player levels and stats. AionRunnerSlim is meant to be slim in size for single monitor users and display essential information. Name, Lvl, Class, Race, Rank.
My programming experience to this day is mild web design(PHP “programs” like WordPress) and 1 semester of C++, so my variable, function and naming conventions on my code just all around should be wrong to the experienced programmers out there.
Yes I mentioned revision 2. See I originally wrote the program for only the US servers, primarily for my Legionmates, which means it only needed to run on one server anyhow… It was when I was getting around to inserting eastereggs and programmer credits(GriffonKnights and I) that I realized that they are an EU Legion…
So… v.2 vs v.1 literally is the addition of the EU servers to the list and making sure that the Legion is credited if anyone looks them up.
I’m almost done, should get uploaded sometime through the day… 2:30AM… I should be asleep… Also just to let users know, default server is Ariel.
Updated: Made a page dedicated to it, as well as have uploaded the program. Check it out HERE!