I ordered a Jawbone Bluetooth headset on the August 1st. By about the 9th, I should be getting it in my hands. This would not be too bad, were it not that UPS Worldwide Expedited was paid for, at almost $50! Aliph’s site quotes 3-4 business days, but this will be more like 6-7. From now on, I think I’ll request USPS Air, as it costs a fraction, it usually arrives quicker, and has never been held up in customs (I can tell UPS horror stories of packages held for days while some stupid customs inspector felt like having a look at the paperwork…).
TUAW: Kismac is far from dead – they are just moving
I read with shock and horror this post on The Unofficial Apple Weblog about a post by Michael Rossberg, one of the developers of Kismac, that states:
There has not been a lot of time for KisMAC lately. However the motivation for this drastic step lies somewhere different. German laws change and are being adapted for “better” protection against something politicians obviously do not understand. It will become illegal to develop, use or even posses KisMAC in this banana republic (backgound: the change of § 202c StGB).
While I cannot do much about that for now, you probably can. Make copies of KisMAC and its source as long as the website is up! Do further development outside of Germany, even better outside the US and EU! If you are a German resident, you will need to fight for your rights.
The post has also been slashdotted, and drawn 155 comments last time I looked. Kismac is a very popular WiFi sniffer for Mac OS, also boasting key cracking functionality that is not present in other sniffers such as iStumbler.
My first reaction was to contact Geoff, one of the lead Kismac developers, who reassured me that Kismac is far from discontinued or deceased, they are basically relocating their servers (the SVN is already abroad) to a country that is not falling into draconian terms which remind us of unfortunate recent history. Since June 2007, new German law makes it illegal to pretty much do any form of investigation or development in the IT security field, as simply releasing a password cracking tool could land you in jail, and possibly even cause anti-terrorist provisions to be applied to you (anally, one would guess). Some comments from the Phenoelit crew also point in this direction – there is a disbandment towards other countries, and a tacit acknowledgment on the original sites that this is to comply with the new laws.
In Kismac’s particular case, Mick seems to have put the point across in pretty blunt terms, not stating that they are in fact relocating somewhere else, making it seem that the project was dying. I actually believe we will see some pretty neat developments in Kismac real soon…but that’s just a calculated hunch
Apple to offer all-you-can-eat subscriptions to iTunes?
Looking at how Universal Music Group has decided not to renew their contract with the iTunes music store (which is by the way the third largest music retailer in the U.S., not just online, but globally!), I predict two things will happen:
- Apple will offer a subscription-based model, where you pay a weekly or monthly fee, and can download as much as you want from their catalog. Right now, iTunes imposes the price they buy their music at, and it has been patently obvious that many labels were not at all happy with the $0.99 a song pricing scheme.
- UMG will see their music pirated like no other label. If people cannot even get their music from a convenient and easy to use source, for a one-could-argue reasonable price, they will find ways to get it from other sources. There are alternatives to piracy, such as MP3Search.ru, which provide songs at $0.19 a piece, DRM-free, and they have a very extensive repertoire (albeit sometimes not as complete as iTunes’).
Will this prediction come true? It depends on how much it would hurt iTunes to lose Universal, and I think it would hurt a lot.
Building a USB programmer for Motorola radios
Part of my duties at my local Fire Department where I am a volunteer is to take care of the radio communications, be it maintaining the repeaters and base stations, to installing new gear and training probies in the art of radio. Recently, I was given a couple of Motorola Radius GM300 mobile radios, a GM350 and a set of three GP320 one-channel handhelds. I have worked with Motorola equipment plenty of times, and have over the years purchased RIB and cable kits, and RSS and CPS software to match. But, the gremlins had managed to lose my RIB box and cable kits, leaving me unable to do anything useful with the radios I was given.
The $30 USB universal programming cable
A tinkerer as I am, the first thing that came to mind after thinking about the various options I faced (purchase a new set of RIB boxes, cables, etc. was an expensive proposition) was to tweak a readily-available USB to serial port converter into a pseudo-RIB, and then making patch cables with the electrical and data bus configuration each radio model required. These converters all share some common traits – they sport an FTDI USB to serial converter, and a Sipex SP213 or similar TTL to RS232 level voltage converter. It should be easy to remove the Sipex chip, and bridge the FTDI directly to the DB9 connector, thus creating a direct USB to TTL serial port adapter. Ready? Let’s get started!
Part I – Open-heart surgery on the USB adapter
The looks of the USB adapter prior to the procedure are shown in this picture:
The first step is to cut open the overmolded plastic, so that we can work on the circuit unimpeded. The adapter used here is available in many local shops where I live, but any similar converter will do the job. With great care to not cut too deep (you risk damaging the components on the circuit board!), use a Dremel or sharp pen knife to make an incision along the red line:
Repeat on the other side of the adapter. On some of these devices, the plastic is not fully opaque, allowing you to see where the circuit board’s edge sits. Once you finish the cuts, carefully pry the two plastic halves apart, until you have something that looks like this (the SP213 is the large chip):
The TX and RX pins of the FTDI chip are connected to TxIN and RxOUT pins on the SP213 respectively. The TTL signal going into pin TxIN is then converted to a +10/-10 volt signal out of pin TxOUT. Similarly, the data signal coming from the serial port into pin RxIN at +10/-10 volts is converted to TTL (0/+5 volts) out of pin RxOUT. In this particular converter, the pins used are R4IN/R4OUT, and T1IN/T1OUT. As can be seen in the chip layout, the inputs to the FTDI are next to each other, so a simple solder ball will bridge them, and T1IN/T1OUT will have to be bridged using a wire.
Removing the SP213 can be done in various ways – if you have a hot air gun, you can clamp it with tweezers and hold the board up a few millimeters while you slowly heat it, until the board falls down from under the chip. You can also use a regular fine-tipped soldering iron and place a big solder blob along one of the rows of pins, then lift up gently, repeat on the other side. Clean excess solder with some copper wick.
The end result, after removing the chip and placing the bridges is as shown (forgive the ugly gray wire – it’s better to do it with insulated copper wire, but I didn’t have any left at the time).
One final step required for some radios is to feed a steady 5 volts out of the DB9 connector. This can be solved by cutting the trace leading to pin 1 of the DB9 (which is not used for anything useful), and running a wire from the +5V pin of the USB connector (this is also shown on the above picture).
Finishing touches
If unlike me, you are good at handywork, you should be able to put the modified board back inside the plastic mold, and glue the cut shut. Otherwise, a heatshrink tube cover works just as well.
Part II – Radio-specific programming leads
Since I had an immediate problem to solve, the easy course of action was to build the cables required to program the GM300s and GP320s. With some luck, the GM300 cable should also program the GM350.
GM300 cable
Working off this schematic found on the very excellent BatLabs site (thanks for getting me out of many fixes, guys!), the following schematic was drawn:
which resulted in this connector:
The diode and resistor used are 0603 SMD, as they fit very nicely between the pins of the DB9.
GP320 cable
This one was going to be more involved – contrary to the GM300, the GP3×0 series of radios doesn’t have an RJ45 connector, which is pretty standard and easy to crimp. Instead, it has a 13-way (what a lucky number to pick!) contact pad connector, which doubles for accessories and programming.
On a service manual, I found the pinout of this connector, and identified the ground, TX and RX pads – which as usual, appeared tied into a single bus for sending and receiving data. I assumed from some other schematics found on BatLabs that the same requirements would apply for this cable, i.e. a pullup to +5V on the data line, isolation via diode of TX and RX…but nothing worked. Eventually, I tried the simplest approach: bridge the TX and RX pins of the DB9 with a 0-ohm resistor. And it worked. This is the stupidly simple schematic of the GP320 cable:
I managed to concoct a three-prong stiff connector, which had to be held by hand against the three pads on the side of the radio, while driving the mouse with the other hand – not comfortable, and potentially dangerous (enough for testing it worked though!).
Part III – GP320 cable – reloaded!
Not happy with having to hold the DIY connector against the radio, an idea popped into my head – these radios come with a plastic cover that screws into place, guarding the connector against water and dirt:
It appeared that the cover was made out of two pieces, a hard plastic lid with a molded-in rubber part, which covered part of the hard lid and formed the collar that clamps the whole thing to the antenna. If this rubber piece could be removed, and the plastic used to mount three spring-loaded contacts…we’d be in business!
Mill-max – the hacker’s friend
Mill-max is a manufacturer of all sorts of electrical contacts, one of their product lines being spring-loaded board-to-board pins. I had used the shortest pin on their catalog for another project, and had a few samples left. These pins can be ordered through DigiKey in small quantities, and they usually keep stock (part number 0900-0-00-00-00-00-11-0). The pins I had were very similar to the ones used in genuine speaker/mics and programming cables:
Inserting the pins
After removing the rubber part, the hard plastic cover looked like this:
It was a matter of finding the location of the pads below, and drilling the pins in. Two factors caused this to turn out better than I thought – I didn’t have a 1.8mm drill (only 1.5mm), which is the pin’s barrel diameter, and even so, what would hold down the pins? The solution: drill 1.5mm pilot holes, and then drive the pins into them, melting the plastic by applying heat from soldering iron on the back of the pin. Done with care, the end result is this:
Cabling up
Once the pins had settled, and were checked for correct spring action (the molten plastic could have gotten into the barrel, locking the spring into place), a three-way flat cable was soldered to the back of the pins, and held down against the cover with a thin insulated copper wire:
Gluing down
A quick shot of hot glue was applied to the top of the connector, which flowed a bit into the remaining open holes, fixing the whole assembly in place. This is what the connector looks like:
And that’s all there is to it! I now have a very light, multi-use, USB programming interface for all kinds of radios – just by changing the connector layout on the female DB9, other radios such as Vertex and Icom could be programmed with ease.
Comments, suggestions and improvements welcome!
Free File Hosting – Disk Space
Disk space is essential to any web site. Disk space is essentially the space that is allotted to a web site in comparison to the amount on the hard drive of the server, or the computer that the information is being stored on. If you order 5 GB’s of disk space then you are allotted those 5 GB’s on one of the server’s hard drives.
Disk space is purchased along with bandwidth in hosting packages for web sites and is related to bandwidth in every way. While bandwidth is the amount of data that is being downloaded from the server, the disk space is the space on the hard drive that holds that data. Basically, disk space is the space where the files and images are stored and the bandwidth is how many times that stored information is being downloaded from the server to other computers.
Disk space allows web site owners to use that space for whatever they’d like to store. Disk space is, in essence, a web site owners virtual storage room. The web site owner has access to this storage room via his or her own computer and can access that storage room at any time and store any file they’d like in there. They can have private sectors of files they don’t want downloaded and then other areas related to the web site itself that can be downloaded. Disk space is like having a hard drive on someone else’s computer that you can access and use yourself on any other computer.
In larger terms, the disk space for a file hosting company is related to the file uploading of a user on that file hosting web site. Users upload files and images to the web site which can then be accessed at any time. By uploading, the users are submitting their file to the disk space that the file hosting web site has purchased in their hosting plans on the server. A user uploads their files and those files join countless numbers of other files from other users all over the world on that same server. Those files on that disk space can then be downloaded from anywhere.
Modern electronics and battery life (or the lack thereof)
I’m pretty amazed at the latest gadgets coming out from the R&D departments of consumer electronics companies, such as Nokia and Apple – the N95 is a super-duper, do-it-all, cellphone (sorry, Nokia wants us to call it a ‘multimedia computer’), featuring multiple bands, HSDPA 3G (Europe only), WiFi, GPS, and a 5Mpixel camera, apart from a wide array of software tools for blogging, posting pictures online, navigation and more. What price does this device pay? A meager 950mAh battery, which lasts less than a day under normal use, considering ‘normal’ as actually using the functionality it offers. I guess you can get more if you turn off the GPS, WiFi, don’t use the camera, and make almost no calls…but then what good are all the bells & whistles for?
The iPhone case is even more interesting, as the device has not been released yet, but Apple has already reported an increase in battery life with respect to the initial quoted value. The iPhone will have 8 hours of talk time, and some 250 hours of standby time, with 5 hours of video and 24 hours of audio playback. Apple’s stock has jumped $3 since the announcement, something that will make losers in the fake email crash happy.
Let’s try to make a simple breakdown of power consumptions, and see if manufacturers are being overly optimistic.
WiFi
One of the biggest power drains, as there is no built-in power management into the WiFi protocol, contrary to GSM and 3G. When transmitting over GSM, a phone makes calculations from data received from the network and its own measurements in order to adjust RF power to the minimum required to reach the cell’s base station. Thus, in areas of good coverage, a phone can be consuming far less power than in rural areas with more spotty coverage. While on a 3G network, the rate of adjustment is even higher. WiFi chipsets in mobile phones have basically two settings, “high” and “low”. Most times, unless you are sitting right next to the access point, and without any major interference, the setting the phone will use is “high”.
Assuming that the WiFi chipset used by the Nokia N95 and the iPhone use little power, for example, by fitting the Nanoradio solution, the power consumption would stand at 130mA in transmit mode, 53mA in receive mode, and 50uA in standby mode. Assuming we are receiving 80% of the time, for example, by browsing the web, the average consumption would stand at around 68mAh. The N95’s battery would last 13 hours, if it had to power the WiFi chipset alone.
GPS
Even though GPS technology has advanced a lot since the early days, GPS chipsets can draw upwards of 80mA. Special trickle-power configurations (which also impact performance) can reduce this to 50mA or so. Thus, the N95’s battery could power the GPS for around 19 hours.
Processor
The Nokia N95 features an ARM11-based Texas Instruments OMAP2420 running at 330MHz, featuring 2D/3D video acceleration on top of whopping performance. What does this mean in electrical power terms? Even though this processor features SmartReflex technology, which reduces static leak currents (a good technical overview is available here [pdf]), the net current drawn is around 30mA. The N95 battery could power the main processor for around 32 hours.
Display
The display on the N95 is very good, beautiful, 16M colors, 240×320 pixel resolution. It is also power hungry, taking around 30mA, thus, the battery could also power the display for around 32 hours.
Phone
Assuming that you talk 5% of the time on the phone, the average power consumption by the phone subsytem alone would stand around 20mA, resulting in a battery life of 47 hours.
Adding things up
So far, we have seen how much the battery could keep running each individual system on the phone, but adding things up, we have a power consumption of about 100mA (taking into account that we are not using everything at once, I halved the figures). This results in around 9.5 hours of operation, more or less an average day. This ties in with most users’ experiences, as shown in many reviews done so far on the N95.
The iPhone, being much thinner, wider and taller than the N95, probably won’t have that much larger battery capacity – why does Apple give the figures they do, I can only blame on the marketing department. This is not as uncommon as it seems, R&D provides a set of carefully calculated and actually measured results, then the marketing guys take them and multiply them by two. Anyone who has used a modern, high-end phone or PDA, will attest to the fact that quoted battery life figures differ from reality by far. I don’t know of many companies that can raise their stock $3 by simply increasing the value of the battery life in one of their products – this shows how much hype there is around the iPhone (of which I’ll most definitely get one…they are soooo sexy!).