Cubieboard Kernel Upgrade SUNXI Extensions
Category Archives: Hardware
Cubieboard Berryboot Installation
Cubieboard Berryboot Install with Linaro ALIP
iBlue 747 GPS logger modding for MacOS
Have you ever had the same problem, shooting a photograph in holiday, and back home you can hardly remember where exactly you’ve been all around ?
The solution, GPS photo tagging. Unfortunately cameras with integrated GPS, are f****ing expensive, GPS PDA handhelds, mobile phones, also costs a lot of money, and GPS car navigation are not suitable for photo tagging at all.
But there is one kind of gadgets that work well as a camera accompaniment are GPS loggers.
Two of them are wide spread, the Sony GPS-CS1 and the iBlue747. I decided myself for the latter one, as its price is half of that of the Sony, further it has bluetooth realtime navigation capabilities (when peered with PDA or mobile) and higher precision support through DGPS.
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But there was one drawback. Connecting the iBlue via USB to my Mac and get it working fails due to missing drivers for the GPS’s USB to UART serial chip-set. OK, Mac has bluetooth, iBlue has bluetooth, so just peer them together, device type “Other”, PIN “0000”, Bingo !
I got my device: /dev/tty.iBT-GPS-SPPslave-1
But then came the next hurdle, GPS information was received from the iBlue, but sending commands to setup the device’s auto-logging timing and verboseness, and the more important download of the way-points stored in the 16MB flash, failed.
After some googling I did find the final solution:
Soldering a 1kOhm resistor between the bluetooth modules RX-line and the GPS chip input, enables control of GPS chips registers via bluetooth.
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Now it’s possible to send commands via bluetooth, and initiate a download of the stored GPS logs.
It’s also possible to reprogram the GPS chip to take up to 5 samples per second instead of 1, thus filling up your flash memory of the logger faster, resulting in less way-points to store, be careful. There’re further more dangerous things you can do, as the GPS chip offers more than 180 commands for tweaking.
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Good enough for me, just pushing the front button when I take a picture and I’m done with a marked way-point in the loggers internal storage.
Some things I found on the net, useful when playing with the iBlue:
? iBlue-Home
? Windows-Drivers
? MacOS PHP Widget
? Java 6 Software
? BT747-Sourceforge-Project
? BT747-Project-Homepage
Don’t buy a new computer, until…
Just in case you want to buy a new computer, and you can’t wait any longer for AMD biggest battleship to arrive, at least you want to wait for Intel’s price-drop on available processors.
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The highest category price-drop is almost 50%, this could also mean that the yet not publicly available QX6800 Core 2 Quad with 2,93GHz will be around the price of the Q6700 now. (950-1050US$)
By the way, my northbridge fan just cracked of the mainboard this afternoon. Is that a sign or what ? 😉
First internet router in space
NASA is launching its first internet
router to be placed in earth orbit.
Thus internet network routing is not anymore limited to undersea
fiber optic cables, direct copper links or low range wireless
communication.
On the other side, this way it is no longer possible for “friendly”
states to eavesdrop communication on ground based
wires/fibers.
Fibertapping is already as easy and unnoticeable as traditional
wiretapping. Ultra broadband uplink interception, is something
completely
different.
The next stage will probably be routing from satellite to
satellite, and once this is done, USA is the only party having
complete control over global internet communication.
Ah, I forgot to mention chinas newest ability to destroy satellites
within 30 minutes by ballistic missiles if needed.
Lets call that, stalematt.
router to be placed in earth orbit.
Thus internet network routing is not anymore limited to undersea
fiber optic cables, direct copper links or low range wireless
communication.
On the other side, this way it is no longer possible for “friendly”
states to eavesdrop communication on ground based
wires/fibers.
Fibertapping is already as easy and unnoticeable as traditional
wiretapping. Ultra broadband uplink interception, is something
completely
different.
The next stage will probably be routing from satellite to
satellite, and once this is done, USA is the only party having
complete control over global internet communication.
Ah, I forgot to mention chinas newest ability to destroy satelliteswithin 30 minutes by ballistic missiles if needed.
Lets call that, stalematt.
Cheap 3D controller device
Just ordered my 3D input controller
device brought to us money saving folks from 3dconnexion for 59.-
Euro.
If you can remember the first 3d mouse and its price, this offer is
really cheap.
No more clicking and pointing in Google Earth, just pure
entertainment.
device brought to us money saving folks from 3dconnexion for 59.-
Euro.
If you can remember the first 3d mouse and its price, this offer is
really cheap.
No more clicking and pointing in Google Earth, just pure
entertainment.
Windows/Linux/MacOSX supported 
Ode to the “expensive” Mac
Plen Skating Robot
This is the newest toy on the japanese
market, its name is PLEN.
And you’ll be surprised how easy this construction is balancing its
movement without any complicated sensors.This is PLEN skating,
controlled by a bluetooth mobile phone:
Here, you can see PLEN
skateboarding, in perfection, he’s a real pro:
And finally PLEN can
also play soccer:
The price for this toy is also very promising its only 2000 US$,
thus being the perfect gift for…. yeah someone you really want
something.
Anyway, try to compare this price with the AIBO
or QRIO
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market, its name is PLEN.
And you’ll be surprised how easy this construction is balancing its
movement without any complicated sensors.This is PLEN skating,
controlled by a bluetooth mobile phone:
Here, you can see PLEN
skateboarding, in perfection, he’s a real pro:
And finally PLEN can
also play soccer:
The price for this toy is also very promising its only 2000 US$,
thus being the perfect gift for…. yeah someone you really want
something.
Anyway, try to compare this price with the AIBO
or QRIO
?
Ah, one last thing:
My delivery address is on the frontpage 
Exress yourself – light emitting t-shirts by Philips
24inch monitor in full HD resolution from Dell
Now I’m happy with my new 24-inch monitor, which was a very cheap
offer from Dell for only 830 euros.
Thus always longing for a big apple screen, I had no chance to
resist. And the best thing is, it’s full HD capable on my Mac
mini.
And also it has amazing connection possibilities: VGA, DVI, YUV,
SVIDEO, Composite and Picture-in-Picture, Pivot and so on.Simply great, what an awesome investment.