My beloved Canon PowerShot A400 digital camera just left us. It was a great camera that only served 8764 pictures in it’s too-short life. Bought in March 2005 and now gone forever.
Source: new camera
With every UMTS/3G card comes a tool that tracks your connection information, your traffic and everything… and it looks like this for a Vodafone UMTS card:
That’s not even close to cute and well useable. So someone took the task and created this:
A small tool that is compatible with almost any available UMTS/3G hardware on earth and has these features:
tiny executable: 0.3 MB, very little CPU load
And the best of all is that this is a freeware tool. Unfortunately it’s not available for OSX.
Source: http://www.mwconn.com
So the Telekom finally managed to bring DSL to my home region. Immediately new stuff was bought to establish a WLAN-network inside the house. When I went home of course I wanted to add my laptop ( a Medion MD 41100, 4 years old) to the net to gain access. But after never having used the WLAN-functions before (yes, there are such people…) no one could know that this would end up in such tremendous trial and error.
The router was a Speedport W 900V and working. It took me about an hour to find the add-new-user-option in the router-menu. After filling in the MAC of my Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 card and creating a new WLAN-connection I was ready to go but nothing happened (yet).
Speedport W 900V
From now I tried several ways to get it done:
1. Get your drivers updated
This was strongly recommended because my card didn’t know the WPA-coding yet, only the older WEP-standard. OK, done. Now I was able to type in some data required by the router. But still no connection.
2. Get your Windows updated
Somewhere I read that there is a support-patch for WPA by Microsoft. Downloaded and installed. Still no access.
3. Use the cards firmware
Intel programmed a software called Intel PROSet for doing some adjustments if needed and adding a new connection which I did. But again without any success.
Here an important thought crossed my mind: Maybe the card is deactivated (The problem had to be clearly somewhere in my laptop because I was using another one for researching in the Internet, so there was a WLAN available and it was working.).
Some clues:
PROSet-configuration (hardware deactivated)
Tray-icon (no network, no connection, transmitter OFF)
Good! So I narrowed down the problem. But how to activate the transmitter?
4. Try the Windows-network-configuration
Many options but nowhere the one I was looking for.
5. Try the firmware
Look above to the PROSet-configuration image: The option to activate the transmitter is simply disabled. Hmm…
6. Try the tray-icon
No, not here.
7. Check your BIOS
Yes, there is a WLAN-entry. But my Phoenix-BIOS has only two modes: card always deactivated on every start or card activated only if activated prior to the system shut-down. So no solution here.
8. Remove the card from your profile
Done and the same as before.
9. Deep-looking in windows
As you know there is a life under the desktop. Typing in %systemroot%\system32\services.msc brought up a nice menu about the systems local services. Here you look for network-connections as follows:
The way to start already has been “automatic”. OK.
10. Look for a hardware-button
Some of you might mention here that this could have happened much earlier: simply looking for an activation-button. And you are right, this button exists. However, pressing it changed nothing.
The solution:
The hardware-button proved to be a good hint. Next I checked the program for controlling the programmable buttons (EzSystem).
Hey, there is an option for WLAN. Activated and one system restart later it was like it was before: the card still deactivated. Then I checked out the directory of this EzSystem-Software.
wbutton.exe –> nothing happened
wirelesscontrol.exe –> peng! WLAN activated and access to the Internet.
Finally it worked. Let’s review it: Obviously you cannot activate WLAN neither through Windows nor the cards firmware; you need a third party’s software. This is (in my opinion) a very weird way.
So I guess that simply some links between components got lost and you have to re-engineer that. A hard task, especially if you have formatted the harddisc right after the purchase, do not knowing anything anymore about the original state and with the support disc hundreds of kilometers away.
Jens Heymann
FeM is in need of a decent conferencing system for years now. And it seems that there’s something really cool showing up in the next days. As of now Microsoft is going to put it’s Roundtable on sale.
“Microsoft RoundTable is a very cool videoconferencing system featuring 360° panoramic views powered by its 5 built-in cameras.”
“The RoundTable actually installs two USB camera devices. The first is the Active Speaker which uses the RoundTable’s 6 microphones to locate where in the room the active speaker is and then focus one of the 5 cameras onto that person. I suspect it may actually use 2 cameras to focus on a person, since it always appears that the speaker is “centered” which probably would require at least 2 camera images and then the images are “spliced” together, processed, and then transmitted over the USB cable. The second USB camera device is the panoramic camera which combines the 5 camera images into a single panoramic image.”
Source: Roundtable Review
After about a week of “thinking about it” she bit the bullet and got herself a Nokia 5300. She wanted to have something that has some dedicated buttons for music playback control and she needed a new mobile phone. So the 5300 seemed the perfect match.
She wanted to sync her new phone with our Mac so we had to look for something that would allow that to happen. Apple iSync does not support the 5300 out of the box but there are several plugins available on the intertubes. One of them is free and does the job just like all the other ones that need to be bought. It’s called “iSync-Plugin 2.4″ and is available here. Just grab it, drop it to the ~/Library folder and restart iSync. iSync should now recognize the phone…just like it did in our case:
Source: http://www.s60themes.co.uk/
It’s almost a year now since I bought a tool named Salling Clicker. Since Salling Clicker is available for OS X and Windows and the fact that I am maintaining my Music Library on my Mac I went with the OS X version of the tool. Sad but true: You have to pay twice if you want it for Windows and OS X.
I now stumbled across a tool for Windows called “Bluetooth Remote Control for Windows Mobile” which seem to does the trick – not as cute and extensible as Salling Clicker but useable.
“With this software, you will be able to control remotely applications like Winamp, the Windows Mixer, the Windows Media Player, PowerPoint, Media Player Classic, PowerDVD, with more coming… such as the Vista’s Media Center.”
The downside is that the author says it’s not working with the WIDCOMM Bluetooth stack at the moment – but maybe in the future he’ll/they’ll update the support.
Source: http://jaylee.org/RemoteControl/
SMKSoftware has something free to play with:
“The Pocket UFO is a remake of the popular game of the last century X-COM Enemy Unknown (UFO Defense) for the Pocket PC devices. The game is a turn-based strategy with the RPG elements. The excellent graphics and exciting gameplay are attracting the gamers all over the world till present. This game is absolutely FREEWARE!”
Source: SMKSoftware
“The Microsoft .NET Micro Framework combines the reliability and efficiency of managed code with the premier development tools of Microsoft Visual Studio to deliver exceptional productivity for developing embedded applications on small devices.
The .NET Micro Framework brings a rich, managed-code environment to smaller, less expensive, and more resource-constrained devices. Requiring only a few hundred kilobytes of RAM and an inexpensive processor, the .NET Micro Framework was built from the ground up to let you build applications using familiar Visual Studio development tools.
With .NET Micro Framework SDK, you can develop your embedded solutions in C# using a subset of the .NET libraries focused on embedded applications. Your development environment is Visual Studio, where you can take advantage of its powerful editing, object browsing, project management, and debugging capabilities. These capabilities are available when using the .NET Micro Framework SDK’s extensible device emulation system or on real hardware.”
“Microsoft Portrait is a research prototype for mobile video communication. It supports .NET Messenger Service, Session Initiation Protocol and Internet Locator Service on PCs, Pocket PCs, Handheld PCs and Smartphone. It runs on local area networks, dialup networks and even wireless networks with bandwidths as low as 9.6 kilobits/second. Microsoft Portrait delivers portrait-like video if users are in low bandwidths and displays full-color video if users are in broadband. In low bandwidths, portrait video possesses clearer shape, smoother motion, shorter latency and much cheaper computational cost than do conventional video technologies. Microsoft Portrait pursues providing presence notification, chat/voice/video functions anytime, anywhere, on any device.”
Heute um 18 Uhr findet das zweite .NET Usergroup Treffen in Ilmenau (Campus, Haus F, Rechnerlabor) statt.
Agenda:
Die Teilnahme am Treffen ist kostenlos, unverbindlich und nicht anmeldepflichtig.
Das ganze kann man auch nochmal auf www.dotnetcommunity.de nachlesen. Dort und hier wird es dann auch nach der Veranstaltung die Slides geben.
“At locations that are particularly subject to accidents, speed cameras are erected specifically to catch speed offenders, to call them to account, and thereby to teach them a lesson. This should also reduce the number of accidents.
We are of the opinion that there is also another way to reduce the number of accidents.
With the help of our database, we hope to achieve the following for our users:
The goal of our project is not to promote “racing”! “
Source: http://www.scdb.info/en/
What once was free is now for sale. Yes, the well known TCPMP player for Windows Mobile is now called “CorePlayer”. And it’ll set you back $24,99. Quite an amount for this app…
Decide for yourself it some new codecs and a new UI is worth the money…it’s not for me.
Source: http://coreplayer.corecodec.org/
I had this very very annoying problem that Windows Vista since the July CTP refresh wasn’t able to connect to my home 802.1x certificate based wireless network. It just did not work as supposed…
But with the help of the RC1 Wi-Fi support specialists I got it working. If you run into the same problem, just do the following to solve it:
netsh wlan add profile “profile.xml” “Wireless Network Connection” all
Et voilá! A message should show up asking you for the certificate…
UPDATE: well you could also create a manual profile for your wireless network and export it to an xml file:
netsh wlan export profile “SSID”
The iRex iLiad e-ink e-book reader is such a fantastic device, a friend of mine is willing to put the >600 euro down to get one. And if he reads this, he’ll be even more motivated to bite the bullet:
“From the factory, the Iliad only uses and maintains Internet connectivity for a very short time and for one specific purpose; to connect to the Rex site. Some enterprising device owners put a little hack together with a PDF file and some http for an address bar and they’re now surfing the web as long they like on the Iliad.”
Source: http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad/specs
Once again an very interesting piece of software made it to the Shared Source family.
“The Device Emulator is a software simulation of a CPU and motherboard, that runs the Windows CE and Windows Mobile operating systems. The emulator is a single Windows .EXE file that contains:
Source 1: Device Emulator Sourcecode Download
Source 2: License
And now I can present my new neighbour: Kathrein 742215 UMTS Antenna! With 300 W it
“Windows Mobile Starter Kits are fully functional sample applications. Each sample is complete and contains its documentation, so you can get started right away.”
And the Starter Kits for Windows Mobile 5 is available for download. Featureing this three samples:
Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/windowsmobile/howto/starterkits/default.aspx
We like surveilance cameras, don’t we? Well sort of: Only if we can use them for fun purposes. Dalini sent me the link to this great piece of having-fun-technology:
“This bike mounted POV is unique, there have been quite a few floating around recently but I have never seen one that calculated and displayed the RPM of the device. Based on wheel diameter the current speed would also be easy to calculate and display.”
Source: http://hackedgadgets.com/2006/06/11/bike-pov-displays-rpm/
When you don’t have the chance to watch the football world championship live on tv, you can watch it on a very nerdy way: ascii-art telnet livestream.
You cannot deny the similarities to the actual tv picture…but you need to be very nerdy and/or very desperate to watch it this way…
Source: http://www.ascii-wm.net/#
As of this weekend the beta version of ActiveSync 4.2 is available for download.
“Microsoft ActiveSync provides a great synchronization experience with Windows powered PCs and Microsoft Outlook right out of the box. ActiveSync acts as the gateway between your Windows powered PC and Windows Mobile powered device, enabling the transfer of Outlook information, Office documents, pictures, music, videos and applications from your desktop to your device. In addition to synchronizing with a desktop PC, ActiveSync can synchronize directly with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 so that you can keep your e-mail, Calendar, Notes, and Contacts updated wirelessly when you’re away from your PC.”
No change-log so far. So please try for yourself on a non-production machine with a non-production Windows Mobile device. Thank you.
Source: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/downloads/activesync42.mspx
… I am back playing a Mario game… soon:
Agile makes the beta version of it’s great instant messenger for Windows Mobile 5 available.
The Alpha and Beta versions are free of charge…
Microsofts Embedded Devices group and WindowsForDevices.com offers a contest to everyone who likes to take part. Read this:
WindowsForDevices.com and Microsoft’s Mobile and Embedded Devices (MED) Group are teaming up to invite developers worldwide to compete at using Microsoft’s Windows CE Shared Source in an exciting real-world project. The contest’s theme is “Show-It-Off at the Shared Source Project Competition.”
“Create a cool, real-world project that combines Windows CE along with either or both of two Shared Source components — the Windows CE WebCam driver and/or the Windows CE DVR engine. If your project is selected by our team of judges for the Grand Prize, you’ll win a complete Xbox 360 dream setup consisting of the Xbox 360 console, a 34-inch HDTV, games, and accessories! Three other winners will be awarded Xbox 360 game consoles.”
So you are actually using shared source components to create new applications. Everything that is needed for the contest is freely available for download. And the prices are quite cool…
I recommend having a look at the Microsoft Shared Source Website. Just to stay up-to-date.
Source 1: http://www.windowsfordevices.com/articles/AT5277795134.html
Source 2: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/default.mspx
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