Gadget Victims

About the Download Section on Foscam web site

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 22:26:00 +0000

If you have visited the Foscam Download Page lately, you may have noticed that the firmwares files are now composed of a WebUI firmware, an explanation.txt and another notice.txt file, but no system firmware!

The explanation.txt says:

Dear customer:
there may be lose of data when you download the file because of the network, and if there is data lose of system fimware, it will cause a serious consequence.
so we decide not to offer the system firmware download, thank you.

The notice.txt says:

If you use this firmware,the must notice that:
1 the system firmware version is:11.14.2.17
2 and the compressed file size is: 788,655 bytes
if the two conditions cannot be met,you can not use
the APP firmware to upgrade.

So we're back to the old time where we could only get new firmwares by contacting Foscam directly.

I don't see why the precaution they take by providing the file size of the WebUI would not be good enough for the system firwmare as well. An MD5 checksum would do just fine too...

It's too bad because this, with their above average tech support was an distinctive advantage over the other ip camera brands of this class.

I suggest that you email them to request that they put the system firmwares back online and provide the compressed file size for it as they already do for the WebUI firmware.

Maybe, with enough feedbacks they will come back to some reason.

Rovio with a Chinese twist

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:25:00 +0000

Well, the comparison is presumptuous and a bit insulting to Rovio, but reading about its numerous criticisms , this might well be one of the alternative left (aside Spykee). Too bad Woowee abandoned the Spyball project !

An early version of Roomba vacuum cleaner with a Pan and Tilt wireless IP Camera mounted on it.

The CVOA-G182 from Chinavasion.com (€382.92) should make everybody happy: housewife and geeky husband alike.

It can be important to consider that only the pan-and-tilt camera can be remote-controlled here. The robot base it just a Roomba and, as such, will bang its way around the room while -kind of- cleaning according to its programmed routine and front bumper.

There's no owners feedback on it yet, but I wonder if it is smart enough to stop in front of the sofa when the camera is mounted or if it will try to force its way under. The camera dome can be unplugged easily though.

iRobot, the maker of Roomba, made a variant called ConnectR, which is presented as a virtual visiting robot. This one is not equipped with a brush but can be driven from an internet connection, comes with VoIP speakers and an integrated IP cam as well. Much like a Rovio, with a less appealing design.

It seems to be "on the market" since 2007, but judging by the selling price (around $500), and the confidential presentation on iRobot web site, it probably never really took off.

Foscam Firmware: 11.14.2.17 once again!

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:05:00 +0000

There is a newer firmware on Foscam web site.
It will still show versions 11.14.2.17 and 2.4.8.14 but the time stamps of these files are from June and July 2010! (The last 11.14.2.17 was from May)

The main change is in the Web-UI that now includes PTZ settings for controling the patrol speed..

Big fingers friendly app

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:24:00 +0000

I recently got totally converted to Swype for Android. This is by far the best Android keyboard alternative and obviously will be found standard on many upcoming phone models.

By default the Android keyboard is just a bit too small for fat fingers, and the alternatives I tried, although nicer-looking, did not help much.

So I was prepared to install, test, and un-install this one within a few minutes just like the ones before. Instead, I decided to keep it event though it occupies 10 Mb of my Spica's small memory.

While you can still use it as a standard keyboard -and the keys are larger as well which is great - you're actually supposed to swipe your finger from one letter to the other until the word is complete. Almost instantaneously, Swype will suggest a word on screen with a high success rate. You do not even need to be very accurate, which is a plus when texting in a transport.

There are easy and well though methods for producing punctuation, adding a word in the dictionary, forming a double letter,... which you can all learn from the integrated interactive tutorial.

There's also a shortcut key to swap quickly from one input language to another.
In brief nothing seems to be missing and you'll be amazed to see how faster you can type with this little revolution.

The beta phase for Android is over but you may find some leaked versions here and there, just beware that you need the one matching your screen resolution (HVGA, WVGA, ...)

In conclusion this is the app to buy if you ever buy one on the Market!

Eclair: Update finally available for Irish Spica owners!

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 21:29:00 +0000

After a long wait that drove most O2 GT-I5700 owners mad, there's at last an official update to Android 2.1 "éclair" available through NPS.

Sombrero cable manager

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 20:39:00 +0000

This evening, I suddenly discovered a passion for things shaped like a sombrero. Or maybe I've been watching too much soccer on TV...

Blogger's new Template Designer

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:22:00 +0000

I like the simplicity of Blogger, but in some aspects it used to be far too simple. The native choice of templates used to be too limited as well as the ability to easily change them.

I ended up adopting the excellent Scarlett template and, seems this kind of template cannot be edited with the blogger layout designer, I had to spend a good deal of time customizing it without breaking its integrity. Still, I kind of reached my limit in HTML editing and now feel a bit stuck with some details I just can't fix or control the way I'd like.

Now with the official arrival of the Template Designer in Blogger, this might change. I'm considering adopting one of the sample templates and work from there to obtain a result quite similar to the current design, but with the advantage of having more control over my layout and less time to spend editing the HTML file.

Definitely a big step ahead for Bloggers.

See this video for a quick overview.

Google Navigation on Android 2.1: not there yet

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 08:06:00 +0000

With my Spica freshly upgraded to Android 2.1 (I570EXXJE1), one of the first improved feature I tried was "Maps".

The remarkable changes with Android 1.5 are:
- The ability to retrieve the places saved with Google Maps ("My Maps") from the list of displayable layers.
- The ability to get spoken turn-by-turn directions with the new Navigation tool.

So I loaded my kml files stored in iGO program into Google Maps, and did some cleanup.
The resulting list could then be seen and used on Spica.

One think was missing to be a complete solution: a way to export those places into a file.

While the export functionality does not exist in Google Maps, it is possible to download the kml file stored online:

- Open a map saved under "My Maps" and click on a custom map.
- The "View in Google Earth" option appear on the right.
- Click on that link and the browser should give you the option to save the file (or doing a right click "Save link as"). The link inside the file lead to a kml file, you just need to adjust the url for use on your browser as explained here.

If instead it opens in Google Earth, that's fine too.
Once in Google Earth, you can right-click on the map name under the Places section and open the properties to retrieve the url to the kml file.
This url can be pasted as is in the url field of your browser, which will download the full kml file. You have your backup.

Now there's a show stopper in Google Maps for Android 2.1: A bug in current beta version makes the navigation useless to any driver without a co-pilot:

While the phone actually gets the GPS fix within the minute (as seen with Compass screenshot below), Google Navigation screen will constantly display "Searching for GPS...". In that state, it will not initiate the speech guidance, except to tell you sometimes "GPS signal lost" (notice the contradiction with the on-screen message). Some suggest that it happens when another application or widget uses the GPS, but even on a fresh installation of Android firmware and no interfering application, this bug persist for most users.
This is not confined to Spica, even the Nexus One is affected. Hopefully it will eventually be sorted.

Beside this bug there's another important point: Google maps goes online to get its informations. A software such as iGO works completely offline. Something to consider when roaming!

New Firmware for Foscam cameras

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Mon, 17 May 2010 09:26:00 +0000

I've been told about a new firmware for FI8904W and received a copy of it (Thanks Neil!). At the same time I also received the corresponding update for the FI8908W from Foscam as I was asking for news on the unfinished FPS parameter introduced in the version 11.14.1.46 still present on Foscam download center.

As always, don't use these firmwares if you have any reason to suspect that your camera is not from Foscam.
Other look-alike cameras such as Maygion, EyeSight and EasyNP will be bricked by Foscam firmware and require updates from their respective manufacturer.

The changes are:
- Wifi disconnections resolved
- Wrong timestamp in log resolved
- Log now reports motion detection events
- Videostream FPS can now be adjusted (see updated videostream command below). You will find this handy to control the bandwidth used by your IP cameras.
- You can Backup/Restore your camera settings

Not fixed: The errors introduced in the tilt function are still present.

An updated WebUI 2.4.8.14 file fixes the PTZ bugs above, I've updated the archive with it. Big thanks to Paillassou!

Another remark on PTZ: you will notice that they've turned the turbo on in that version, the PTZ patrol rate is set to the maximum (0). With the bug above, it's nearly impossible to set the camera in the right position. You may then want to change this speed back to normal with the following command:

http://[ipcam]/set_misc.cgi?ptz_patrol_rate= 20

I suggest that you also send this other command:
http://[ipcam]/set_misc.cgi?ptz_center_onstart=0

This will prevent the camera from rotating on reboot. You won't need to re-position the camera each time.

Click on your model to download:
FI8908W
system firmware        11.14.2.17
web ui firmware       2.4.8.14

FI8904W (also FI8903W)
system firmware        11.15.2.17
web ui firmware       2.4.9.14

The included IP Camera Tool needs to be updated to 7.2.34 as per instructions.
Last minute: While I didn't encounter problems myself, some users had troubles with this version IP Camera Tool.
If it's your case, please try the newer version 7.5.32. (Thanks to Paco for the heads up)

/videostream.cgi[?user=&pwd=&resolution=&rate=]
/videostream.asf[?user=&pwd=&resolution=&rate=]

Parameters:
resolution:(8:320*240,32:640*480)
rate: 0-23
    0:maximum
    1:20 fps
    3:15 fps
    6:10 fps
    11:5 fps
    12:4 fps
    13:3 fps
    14:2 fps
    15:1 fps
    17:1 fp/2s
    19:1 fp/3s
    21:1 fp/4s
    23:1 fp/5s

How to access your IP camera from the Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Thu, 13 May 2010 18:36:00 +0000

True geeks come usually with 3 major faults: they don't do backups, they don't quarantine new fishes, and... they never read the manual!

What follows is actually quite well explained in the IP camera manuals, but remains the most frequently asked question:

"How do I access my IP camera(s) from the Web ?"

Taking from the point where your IP camera is accessible from inside your home network, the very next thing you want is to access it from outside as well, using a PC or a phone, on holiday or at your workplace.

This short guide assumes that your camera connects to a router, the most common scenario, so the ADSL and DDNS settings of the camera itself are not used here. All the job will be done on the router. If you do dial-up from the camera, you can still quite easily transpose the instructions below to your case as soon as you get the idea.

1. Dynamic DNS setup
While not vital, using dynamic DNS service will make your life easier, and it's free. Without it, you need to know what external IP address your ISP assigned to you and use it as part of the url to access your network from the outside (http://10.11.12.13). This IP address is likely leased from a limited time and is subject to change, so you'd need to keep track of it.

Upon free registration, the dynamic DNS service will offer you a list of free domains to choose from, and will map it to your external IP address.

The router will interact with the dynamic DNS service to update it with any IP address change. Most routers have a dedicated section where to enter your Dynamic DNS account details.

First thing to do, is to retrieve the section dedicated to DDNS setup in your router configuration and check what choice of DNS service providers it available (PortForward.com has screenshots from many routers to help you locating the right setup page for your model.), this varies from manufacturers, but almost all will support the most popular one: dyndns.com. Pick one available and then go to their corresponding web site to create an account.

In this example, we will choose to map our external ip address with http://mylab.homedns.org

You will be told if the name+domain name combination is already taken and will have to choose another one.

Once this is done, you just need to enter your login and domain name into your router:

Your router will now keep dyndns automatically updated with any ip address change.

2. Port forwarding
Now that the url http://mylab.homedns.org leads to your external address, you still need to tell the router where this incoming traffic will be redirected inside your lan.

In this example, suppose you have the following devices in service:

IPCam1 on 192.168.1.100 using port 80

IPCam2 on 192.168.1.101 using port 80

  NAS  on 192.168.1.102 using port 80

The port forwarding will just tell to which of them the incoming traffic will be forwarded.

Here, if we want http://mylab.homedns.org to lead to the internal http://192.168.1.100, we need to set this up in the router as follow:

The port forwarding section is generally located in the Virtual Server category of the router.

Again, portforward.com will help you find the right section on any router model.

You can setup several port forwarding entries so the other devices are accessible as well, but the incoming port needs to be different for each of them:

- incoming http://mylab.homeftp.org:81 goes to IPCam2 internal http://192.168.1.101(:80)

- incoming http://mylab.homeftp.org:82 goes to NAS internal http://192.168.1.102(:80)

Please note: For the port forwarding to work consistently, you must assign fixed internal IP addresses for your devices in the router's DHCP table. Make sure also that your router firewall doesn't block the incoming traffic on ports used.

3. Multi-device setup
IP cameras like Foscam offer the convenience to access up to 9 ip cameras through the interface of one.
If you use this feature, you probably entered the internal ip addresses in the Multi-Device section of the ActiveX configuration interface.
So when connecting from the Internet, you will realize that only the master camera is accessible and the others can't be viewed, and show a steady yellow dot in the device status section.

To sort this out, you need to go back to the multi-device setup and replace the internal IP addresses by their respective DNS paths and ports.

For your intranet usage, if you don't like the idea of that traffic out-and-in, you still can configure the multi-device section of your other camera with the internal ip addresses and use this one at home.

Additional reading (from DynDNS.org)
Routers and Port Forwarding
Open Port tool to check if some ports are blocked by your ISP.

Samsung Spica GT-I5700

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 11:32:00 +0000

After a long time with Sony Ericsson phones (K750i, K550i, G705i) and overall disappointed with the last one, I decided to return to Samsung (my last one in 2004 was the SGH-E700) by acquiring the Galaxy Lite/GT-I5700/Spica/Portal.

The choice
I'm a Google fan since the early hours so it was obvious that I'd come sooner than later to an Android phone.
For a fact, I new that I wouldn't return to a Windows Mobile phone after the HTC TyTNII "Kaiser" (the blame goes mostly to WM, altough I still have the display drivers scandal in mind).

So after looking at the HTC Hero as a potential candidate, I spotted the newer Spica with similar specs and better price. I almost bought the Galaxy I7500 by accident, since I couldn't tell the difference between these two phones both priced around ~€220.
While the I7500 has an AMOLED screen and more internal memory, the Spica, with its traditional LCD screen, comes with a faster CPU (800Mhz) and, last but not least, the promise an upgrade to Android 2.1 "éclair", something that I7500 owners are still screaming for.

Why not an iPhone ?

because everybody has one!

Newbie discovery to Android
After a too long wait, the phone arrived from a German eBayer.
The Spica packaging is minimalistic but complete: 1 CD, 1 manual, 1 usb cable, 1 earphones and 1 microSD card of 1GB.

My first experience was pleasant but I struggled to get the "New Samsung PC Studio" detect the phone. The solution was to find and disable an almost hidden parameter which keeps the phone in "Mass storage only" mode! (it's in Settings > About Phone > Additional settings)
This parameter has a toggling relationship with the other parameter in Settings > Application settings > Development > USB Debugging.

All this to find out that neither PC Studio or its redundant counterpart, Samsung Kies, would support the Android phones except for updating the firmware.

The second newbie challenge was to access the MicroSD memory from Windows. A drive was created on Windows but would not open. To solve this, the drive must actually be "mounted" by going to the notification area, tap on "USB connected" indication, and select the "Mount" option. Simple...once you know it.

Then the fun really started, and I must say it's a very enjoyable experience to use a phone on Android platform. Despite its the rather old 1.5 version of Android, the system is stable and well thought.

The classic Android keyboard, with rather small keys can be here replaced by a more clever Samsung keyboard . Switching to another keyboard once again requires to know another hidden trick since there is menu setting for that. The method consist in opening the keyboard first, by going into Google search for instance, and have a long press on the left lower key labelled "?123". A pop-up window appears with "Input Method", which is where you choose the keyboard model to activate.

The Samsung keyboard offers 20keys, 12keys, and Qwerty layouts, with multitap and T9 using larger keys. There's also a language key allowing to quickly swap from a language to another.
This seems at first better than the Android keyboard, but there are some problems, especially of typing in another language than English: some punctuations and accents are not as easily reachable that with the Android keyboard (where a long press is all it takes). Here you need to hit the "abc" key and swap to another input mode (Abc, Numeric, Symbols). This slows down significantly the typing speed potential of the layout. Also, an irritating bug affecting all the languages, where the "i" key always produces an Uppercase I... not good for case-sensitive passwords!

The Market:
I remember that, for my older Windows Mobile phone, it took me some time to gather all the apps needed to fill the gaps, and I had to pay for most of them. Here, I found all the essential and plus for free the first day. Since Google does not yet allows pay-apps in some countries like Ireland, freeware and trial versions are all you get on the Market.
Still there's a nice collection of decent applications for free. Below is a list of some noticeable ones:

Google Sky Map: gives you to the names of stars just by point the phone to them.
KeePassDroid: the Android client of the password manager KeePass.
Antennas: helps you locating nearby GSM antennas. Can come handy when you need to point a 3G booster antenna in the right direction.
ES File Explorer and ES Task Manager: always useful at times and a task manager is sometimes needed to clean up the memory from sleeping programs.
Astro (File manager and tools): same as above, both are equally good.
MobilePDFViewer
Twonky Server: Allows you to share media content from the phone with most UPnP and DLNA devices.
WebSharing Lite: a good way to make the files on your phone available to PC's through Wi-Fi.
Wallpaper Rotator: set a directory with your favorite pictures and they'll be used as background pictures at define interval.
Voice Recoder: just as it says
Wifi Analyzer: collects statistics on the surrounding Wi-Fi channels in use.
WeatherBug: a quite complete weather forecast application.
FPT System Manager: Allows to monitor the phone memory and CPU and gives fast access to some settings like Brightness, ringer, media and incall volumes, including switches for GPS, Wifi, BT and GSM.

Amongst the good surprises, I found a little gem called "IP Cam Viewer Lite" that has support for my Foscam IP cameras with PTZ control! Compared to the J2ME IP Camera Viewer I was using on my Sony Ericsson G705, the user interface is better and it can save snapshots.

The excellent IGO navigation, based on the latest Amigo UI, is also available for Android.

Things the Spica doesn't have at the moment (Android 1.5):

- FM Radio

- Voice Dialing

- Can't natively send a contact or calendar item through SMS or BT

- not DLNA certified and no UPnP support natively

A little regret also that the 3.5mpix auto-focus camera is not more snappy. The current camera software is also very minimalistic.

Like all the Spica owner's in Ireland, I'm waiting for the arrival of the Android 2.1 "éclair" and it seems to be up to the O2 operator and Samsung to release it anytime soon. At time of writing O2 says they're testing the release for approval.

See that little presentation of the new version from GSMArena.com :

Irish DTT on MPEG2 only TV

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:11:00 +0000

I have a LG Flatron monitor (M2294D-PZ) that comes with DVB-T tuner. Only recently, I gave it a try and scanned for signal and -to my surprise- several channels were found (A publicly accessible test phase begun in December 2009).
Even more surprising, in my remote village where the analogue signal is so poor and provided I only have an indoor antenna, the digital signal strength was strong enough, about 90%!

The only problem was that I only had sound, as well as a "HD Service" pop up message on screen.

These two symptoms required two distinct solutions:

Sound but no picture: In current TV's most tuners are MPEG2 only, and, unlike the rest of Europe, Ireland adopted MPEG4. By chance, my monitor came with a CAM slot, so I ordered a CAM that enabled the conversion of MPEG4 stream, bringing a clear picture for every channels. At the price of 60€, one may decide to wait for the specifications of Irish TV to be finalized and buy a complete decoder unit for about the same price.

"HD Service": With the appropriate CAM inserted, I expected the bouncing "HD Service" text to disappear, especially with unencrypted test channels. Unfortunately, most LG TV's came with a bug that requires a firmware upgrade (anything above v.3.51.01). Greeks and Polish forums are well aware of this and some even provide links to the firmware files, but not for my model. Too bad! because all it takes is to store the firmware on a flash drive and plug it in the USB port marked "service only". With the "Software Upgrade" option enabled, this update is being loaded automatically.
I've tried the LG support, and they arranged a return to a service centre. I joined the firmware upgrade details just in case, although they're supposed to know better. well, they sat on the monitor for two weeks and returned it with a reply like "There's not fault in the monitor, check your TV signal...". They later confirmed that they were unable to obtain the firmware.
That's official, the LG support in Ireland is hopeless. I hope I'll never have troubles with my BD390 now.

Some official download links to Foscam material

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 10:16:00 +0000

I just noticed today that Foscam web site does finally contain some working links to the manuals, softwares (IP camera tool) and latest firmwares for all models in their Download Center (under "Supports and Downloads")

Battery backup solution for home

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:53:00 +0000

Power cuts are very common in my area with about 2 incidents monthly. So far, the damage has been minimal with just one hard disk full of games lost. It would have been another story if it happened to the NAS dedicated to my photos, music and movies.

After comparing different brands and models, the BE700G(-UK) from APC appeared as the obvious choice.
It is said to have enough power to allow plenty time for my stuff to shut down safely and it's just like a bulky power strip that can stay discrete on the floor.

Next thing was to find a store to buy it. It was particularly convenient since APC has an Irish web site with the model available for €118.99 (VAT & Shipping included). Just four days later, the Back-UPS arrived from Netherlands and I started to install it.

All it took was to connect the cathode wire in the battery compartment, link the UPS data port to the NAS (Synology DS-109) with the USB cable provided, and decide which devices to plugs in the 8 outlets (4 surge protection + backup power, and 4 surge protection only). In my configuration, there would be an old 300W tower computer, a 22" LCD monitor (80W), and the Synology NAS (20W) on the power backup side. The printer would be on the surge-protection-only side on a "controlled" outlet. One feature offered by the BE700G is to allow up to 3 devices on the "controlled" outlets to be powered off when the device on the "master" outlet (typically a PC) shuts down.

Idealy the UPS must be left to charge for the first 16 hours in order to provide an optimal protection, so I resisted the urge to play with it...for at least 20 minutes...

In my case it was not necessary to install the included PowerChute software since I linked the UPS to my Synology Diskstation which software already takes care of the UPS management. By default it is set to keep the NAS running until the UPS battery is low (which takes 4 min. in my case), then it would go on safe mode, I preferred to have this action done after 1 minute.
At this stage, I enabled the network UPS server with no clear idea how I would make this work with my PC.

I first thought that the PowerChute software would be necessary, but it only work if the UPS is locally connected to the PC USB ports. As a newbie in to the UPS world, I learnt that a network UPS server (NUT) would provide its service to NUT clients, and while there were plenty available for Linux, there were only a few running on Windows platforms.

I came accross that neat freeware called WinNUT which has the excellent option to install as a service. Its properties file must be properly configured but comes with enough comments and examples to make this possible in a matter of minutes. After clicking the "Apply and Start WinNUT" button , the computer was ready to receive alerts from the NAS. It is good to note that WinNUT 2.0.0b works perfectly on Windows 7.

I just switched off the wall outlet for a test and, while the Synology DiskStation detected the new UPS status (which in turn started to beep at regular intervals), the WinNUT client sent a pop up message to relay the information.

After the 60 seconds specified, both NAS and PC initiated their shut-down procedure.

...and best of all... a real outage occurred shortly after my UPS unit was installed !

Finding your way on this blog

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:01:00 +0000

It is inevitable that questions already covered are coming back again. In particular as new visitor, you are not supposed to know that there are plenty more posts related to the one you landed on.

So check this quick tour on how to find information on this blog, your answer is likely not that far away...

Let's start by the least interesting one: the main search field

This feature is part of the standard Scarlett template design. It works, but it does not return always the most relevant results.

I have included a better search box on the right column, primarily to retrieve some comments that often contain precious information on how we sorted a problem before. This box actually searches not only the comments but the entire blog, so that's the one I'd recommend.

You may not have noticed this, but the category bar under the logo contains submenus (well, actually only one currently). This is a simple way to return all the topics on IP Camera in one page.

For more label-based filtering like above, there's the tag cloud on the right but it's more for random browsing.

There's always labels at the end of the posts that you can click to return all the related articles.

Finally a list of related article is generated as well.

Enjoy your stay!

One step closer to Google Wave

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:19:00 +0000

When I saw that little "Buzz" icon in my Gmail yesterday, I though "Oh great it's there finally, let's share some maps, pictures and documents in real time...", but I was mixing up with Google Wave.

Although Google Buzz is admittedly inspired from the Google Wave project, it is a social networking tool (kind of advanced Twitter), while Google Wave is a complete online collaboration tool that would be more suitable for working on a group project for instance (but not only).

There are already concerns about Google Buzz making you more social than you'd want so you should ensure that you control who your followers are, who you're following yourself, the privacy level of your buzz, and if you want your profile public or not.
Google Buzz is really a social networking thing, so the non-Facebook/mySpace people should ultimately consider scrolling to the very bottom of the Gmail page to turn Buzz off.

Introduction to Google Buzz:

Introduction to Google Wave
The short version:

The long version:

I want Google Wave!

My first FI8904W! (Outdoor IP camera)

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:29:00 +0000

Since there is no suitable solution to place one of my FI8908W outside, I decided eventually to go for a proper outdoor IP camera.

So I ordered a FI8904W and decided I'd become a bit more knowledgeable about it by giving it a thorough inspection on arrival.

This camera came with standard 6mm lens (8mm, 12mm and wide-angle 3.6mm are also available according to the description the box)
The manufacturing date is October 2009 so it comes with the firmware 11.14.1.46.

It also exists in different colours. According to the box, mine is "Coffee".
I ignore what substance you must ingest to see purple coffee, but someone in China's got the secret...

So my first experiment was to see if I could change the lens, with a wide-angle from my 6-lens pack (found at DX). Please note that these lenses, while compatible with the indoor model FI8908W, would have a smaller diameter than the lens cavity, leaving a unsightly gap, but for the FI8904W, they're just perfect.

It is not visible but the front of the camera can be unscrewed to access the lens compartment. It takes some grip but eventually will come off nicely.

All you need to do then, is to unscrew then tiny lense anti-clockwise all the way.

Pay attention not to lose the rubber ring that isolates the lens chamber from the electronic components.

I picked the 2.8mm lens and screwed it in (with the rubber ring) until the focus was ok.

A quick look inside

Opening the rear part of the camera just requires to unscrew the large hexagonal ring around the wire, then unscrew all 4 small hexagonal screws, which will void the warranty of course (in my case it would cost the price of the camera to ship it back to the reseller anyway...)

What I wanted to find is located on the main pcb: there's a jtag port (marked J2). As for most recent cameras, the pins are no longer present but, with a proper solder, it will be possible to make a serial connection and, if it gets bricked one day, perform the recovery operation previously explained in this article (same recovery files apply).

Below is a comparison between the factory lens and the 2.8mm lens field of vision.

Night vision (2.8mm):

Shortcuts to some IP Camera functions

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:31:00 +0000

The following is a selection of CGI functions that can be used with Foscam ip cameras. They are issued through the URL line of a browser and can be used as convenient shortcuts to features that are not ideally accessible in the original UI, like the network activity led, which is located on a page that requires a reboot while the function itself could be activated instantly.

http://[ipcam]/set_misc.cgi?led_mode=2
this will turn off the green activity led instantly.
The valid values are as follow:
led_mode=0 - the green led blinks only once connected.
led_mode=1 - the green led blinks while searching for a connection and when connected.
led_mode=2 - the green led is always off.

See here for the meaning of the different blinking rates.

http://[ipcam]/set_misc.cgi?ptz_center_onstart=0
the camera won't auto-rotate any more when restarting, so you won't need to re-position it any longer upon rebooting.

http://[ipcam]/set_misc.cgi?ptz_auto_patrol_interval=30
This function is currently not implemented in the user interface and instructs the camera to start a patrol at a defined interval, here 30 seconds.
The patrol type is defined by this other command:
http://[ipcam]/set_misc.cgi?ptz_auto_patrol_type=1
Possible values: 0: None; 1: horizontal; 2: vertical; 3: Horizontal + Vertical

http://[ipcam]/set_misc.cgi?ptz_patrol_rate= 20
The value provided will defined how fast the camera will rotate on patrol, here 20 is the default.
Fastest speed = 0. Slowest speed = 100.

http://[ipcam]/get_misc.cgi
Returns all the current values for the functions above.

http://[ipcam]/get_log.cgi
Displays the visits log

http://[ipcam]/get_params.cgi
Returns the complete configuration of the camera.

All the commands can be chained in the same url by using & as separator.

(complete documentation can be found on this page)

Start up guide for new wireless IP camera users

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:23:00 +0000

The information in this post may seem very basic to people who have a wireless IP camera for some time, but, we all tend to forget how confusing and frustrating our first steps may have been setting up these gadgets the very first time.
I'll try to second the network settings chapter in the IP camera manual (even though a true geek never reads the manual) to help passing the blocking points of the wi-fi setup procedure.
This is based on a Foscam camera but can certainly be used with other wireless cameras.

The step that nobody has problem with (usually) is connecting the camera to the network with the Ethernet cable. When this is done, the wireless settings can be accessed from the Administrator section and that's where a first very common error is made:
Many beginners enter an arbitrary name in the SSID field, thinking it will identify the camera on the network. What is needed here, is the name of an access point (typically your wi-fi router).

Also make sure that you choose a supported encryption and prefer WPA to WEP if possible. The channel should also match the one used by the router.

In the most recent firmwares, there is a scan button to detect available access points automatically. If nothing appears after scanning you may need to click the refresh button.

The next step is often unclear as well to newbies: once you click on the Submit button, the camera will start a countdown of 30 seconds to restart. This is the moment to unplug the Ethernet cable. You should have done this within 10 seconds, on FI8908W, it is typically before you hear the short click from the camera speaker preceding the initial rotation sequence. The camera will start looking for a network and, at the condition that there is no more Ethernet connection, a wireless access point will be searched.

If everything goes well, after a few seconds, the green led will the blink much faster than before, indicating that it achieved a wireless connection.

The final step is to check your router's DHCP page for any incoming request, this is likely to be your ip camera (If nothing appears, ensure that you disabled the MAC filtering on your router for the time of the procedure).Just use that ip address in the url of your browser to confirm it is what you expect.
You can then add this address to your static DHCP list and MAC filter exceptions.

Note: The camera needs the router to be in broadcast mode in order to connect, otherwise it will not find the AP. This limitation has been reported to Foscam.

LG BD390 Blu-Ray player with Wi-Fi

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 18:10:00 +0000

I was watching this Blu-Ray player for a few months and after having compared the features and prices with other Samsung and Sony players, it ended up as the logical choice. It took less thant a week to arrive from a German eBay shop that beats my usual providers (Amazon, Komplett, Pixmania) in terms of price and stock availability.

The installation was surprisingly easy and quick: after about 15 minutes, the unit was Network-connected, Region-hacked, and Firmware-updated ! Never mind the user manual was only in German (I downloaded the EN version from lge.com), it was really not necessary!

Network connection: My wireless router Billion Bipack 7402GXL was detected and I could even use it's WPS (Wi-Fi protected Setup) function for the first time. In the Wireless setup, the LG BD390 offers a "Push Button" option, which starts a timer of 120 seconds during which I just need to press the WPS button on my router to have all the network information exchanged, saving me from entering manually the encryption type and key. That's all I needed to have the unit connected to the Internet. Repeating the operation later, I've found that it sometimes needs up to 3 retries to have the "Wireless Dynamic IP" setup successfully. Maybe I'm just a wireless range issue?

Region Hack: I downloaded the necessary file from multi-region.net and burned the RMTM0000 folder contained in the 6000.iso file.
Two things to consider regarding this hack:
- it is reported to work only on European models for some reason (to verify).
- it may not run if you already updated your firmware to the latest version. LG Support Web Site keep a few versions back if needed.

The good thing is that the change is persistent, so upgrading the fw afterwards will not affect the hack.

Upon loading the CD containing the hack, a region selection appears where you just need to select the region you want with the up and down keys on the remote (0 for Region Free).

Firmware Update: the BD390 came with a the firmware version 8.08.360.B. I took the time before updating to look around the functions and browsing through the menu. I noticed it was sometimes sluggish, and occasionally even froze (trying to access a .TS file from the local network). If there was a Java console, I bet it would show an endless list of UnhandledExceptions scrolling. A 5 second push on the power button (like on most PC's) was necessary to force the unit to power off.
I had the firmware 8.08.529.B ready on a USB drive, but despite that, the player detected the update on the Internet and offered only this way to update. I found out after that, because I plugged in the USB drive before powering on, the DB390 didn't detect it at boot time. Un-plugging and re-plugging solved the problem.
The update operation took about 5 minutes and ended with the player powering off (not restarting). Upon powering it on again, I verified that the upgrade was in place and noticed that the operations were a bit smoother in general, and the unit generally more stable, even though some glitches are still present.

That's it, the player was setup, with a short review to adapt the display settings so it would work well with my almost-HD television (HD-Ready Samsung LE32R51B)

First use:

I won't give a full technical review, there are many good ones available already, but just my impressions during the first hour of use.

The HOME menu can be called by pressing the Home button on the remote and offers 6 different sections:

Movie: that's were the local medias can be played: Movie/Audio disc or USB drive
I played a Divx movie from the USB drive and it loaded instantly, which differs greatly from the almost 2 minutes load time that my SilverCrest DVD reader from Lidl always needed, obviously to fill its buffer. Does it mean that the LG uses faster memory or... doesn't bufferize anything ?
Loading the Blu-Ray version of Ice Age 3 took between 20 seconds to 1 minutes depending...I don't know what! Loading DVD was always faster. I found the unit very silent, particularly after having recently seen a Samsung player in action.

Photo: will scan local medias for pictures

Music: will scan local medias for playable music.

My Media: That's the place I was looking forward to play with. All the uPNP/DLNA hosts show up here: it found my mobile phone Sony Ericsson G705, Synology DS109 and computers (XP SP3 and Seven).
Re-scanning the network will never give twice the same result, so several attempts may be needed to get the full list.

Listing the media content can be randomly fast or sluggish even with the latest firmware.

The sluggishness of the unit is partially due to the remote and using a Logitech Harmony instead gives a much better response, but in addition, the system also sometimes stops responding for several seconds for no apparent reason.

The default view is not the best and pressing the Display button on the remote brings a more convenient "zoomed-out" view of the files list.
Inside My Media section, the content is again separated into three distinct kind of content: Movie, Photo and Music.

My Media > Movie: Wi-Fi 802.11n is especially welcome for playing video content, however my wireless router is still 802.11g.
This, combined to the occasional traffic from the Wii, the IP Cameras, and the weak signal caused by the distance from the router, resulted in occasional choppy Divx playback from my Synology NAS. This could be improved by a proper buffering, but the LG BD390 doesn't seem to do any.

My Media > Photos: I found a bug in this part: the rendering of pictures from my NAS was awfull, as if a mosaic effect had been applied to them. Same from my phone. The same pictures read from a USB drive would show fine. (update: this turned out to be a Synology bug resolved from DSM 2.3-1143)

My Media > Music: the mp3's were played smoothly with no surprise. I just regret that it is such a basic music player, a shuffle function would have been nice.

YouTube: The YouTube browser.
Well, yes it plays videos from YouTube all right. I just don't see myself spending evenings browsing YouTube videos on the telly, so I won't go there very often.

Setup: also speaks for itself.

In conclusion, some polishing is still needed to make this unit a fully satisfying player, but the potential is really there. Let's see if LG can make some difference here...

Pros:
- very simple to setup
- great set of features
- support many formats
- silent BD/DVD playback

Cons: (with fw 8.08.529.B)
- the player is randomly sluggish
- occasional crashes (not too often)

Cheapest (€223.-) found on eBay by ITSS-DAMM.

Region hack: multi-region.net

Complete review: see audioholics.com

Support Web Site: www.lge.com

Bring your FI8908W paperweight back to life

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:10:00 +0000

If you're part of the numerous people who bricked their ip camera at any stage, maybe you kept it (as a door stopper, a paperweight or a dummy camera). In that case, there is one thing you can try to make your camera functional again. It requires a small investment of less than €15 so I think it's really worth trying.

I obtained some information recently, thanks to Foscam tech support for most part, on a serial upgrade method that would fix cameras for which the firmware upgrade went bad.

A word of caution first:
- this should be experimented only if you exhausted your other options, like claiming a replacement under the warranty.
- this is also not guaranteed to work for all. It suppose that the boot loader in the camera is still intact.

What you need:
- Your FI8908W (the recovery binaries I have are only for this model)
- a USB to serial UART interface that does 3.3v logic (like this one or this one). If dual 3.3v/5v is not specified, assume it does 5v only and don't buy. This should not cost you more than €15.

- some wires and female crimp pins to make the connections easier. I reused those from an audio cable for CD-ROM.

- the Recovery files - Mirror (FileFactory) - They contain instructions and binaries to upload.
- a terminal software if you don't have HyperTerminal on your version of Windows. I suggest RealTerm.
- I also used some adhesive putty to help keeping the wires in place and isolate the wires from each other.

You have to unscrew the bottom cover of the camera to access the JTAG connector (marked J2). On some cameras the connector is there but without the pins; In this case, add a solder iron to the "What you need" list. The only challenging task will be to achieve a stable connection to it for the length of the operation.

In the documentation, the file IPCAM_PCB_Connection.xls shows where to connect the wires. The 4 pins, from right to left are used as follow:
Pin #1 - INPUT
Pin #2 - OUTPUT
Pin #3 - GROUND
Pin #4 - POWER (not needed)

The serial interface you buy may have more than 4 pins but the corresponding ones will usually be labeled as TXD, RXD, GRD and VCC. One important point is that you need to cross INPUT with TXD, and OUTPUT with RXD.

The file IpCam serial upgrade.pdf will tell you how to initiate the connection with the boot loader of the camera and what commands to issue in order to upload the recovery files, linux.zip and romfs_cmos_11_14_1_37.img (for fi8908w only) into the camera. (I added W90N745 uClinux BSP User Manual.pdf that documents the uClinux commands). If you see a screen like the one below, the rest should be straightforward.

Below is the documented procedure as it worked for me. In bold is what you type and in italic what is returned (don't forget to press ESC to enter debug mode as told on screen).

You can also watch this video as an example to make yourself familiar with the procedure.

bootloader > del 6
ERROR: Image 6 is not existed (there was obviously nothing to delete in my case)

bootloader > del 7
ERROR: Image 7 is not existed

bootloader > fx 6 romfs.img 0x7f0d0000 0x7f0d0000 -a
Waiting for download
Press Ctrl-x to cancel ... (while it waits, you have to select Transfer > Send File in Hyperterminal menu, choose the Xmodem protocol and select the file romfs_cmos_11_14_1_37.img)
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
Flash programming ...
.........
bootloader > fx 7 linux.zip 0x7f020000 0x8000 -acxz
Waiting for download
Press Ctrl-x to cancel ... (while it waits, you have to select Transfer > Send File in Hyperterminal menu, choose the Xmodem protocol and select the file linux.zip)
CCCC
Flash programming ...
..........
bootloader > boot

Rebooting the system ...

The camera will boot and probably start moving during the initial check up phase, it's back !

Something for non-Foscam devices:
I don't want to be Foscam-centric, it's just that I only have Foscam devices at the moment, so I'll put here similar recovery packages for non-Foscam cameras when available and to the limit of my free storage (mainly FileFactory & Google Docs). They're provided as is and I have no way to test them.

Please also note the new "Recommended Readings..." section on the right column with links to some outstanding web sites on IP cam hacking.

IP607 (EyeSight) found @ Chinavasion: This recovery package is the result of concerted efforts of the ip cam hackers
commenting below this post. It's been made available by Admin (mirror) and contains the adjustments to the fx 6... line. Please follow the instructions in the help.txt.

EasyNP FS 613A M136: Check this very detailed recovery guide from Oskys!

Changing the MAC address
Some clones, mostly from DealExtreme.com apparently came with the same MAC address, making it impossible to use them together in the same network. An easy way is documented here (mirror). I didn't test it, but according to the feedbacks on Ted's blog, it seems to work great.

Some branding at last!

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:05:00 +0000

Foscam is primarily a OEM producer and therefore always left their products open to custom re-branding.
Over time, they acquired some popularity (probably due to both their firmware evolution and their present customer support) but it was nearly impossible to distinguish their products from others if you wanted to buy from them.

This is about to change finally as, starting with the December production, their product range will now carry a distinctive "Foscam" label.

Another small change will be the presence of the "IR Night Vision ..." sticker on the focus rim but this is already common amongst the clones.

So, provided that eBay resellers update their pictures, it should now be easier to buy a Foscam camera when you want one.

More pictures of branded Foscam models on www.foscam.com

Digital Note Taker Pen

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:55:00 +0000

I got myself the"gadget of the month" from the local hard-discount shop and started to play with Medion Digital Note Taker (MD 86149).

This 2nd generation model is similar to what appeared under the IOGear brand about 2 years ago but it became cheaper enough today to trigger an impulsive buy (€59.99).

By opposition to the much more expensive (but cool) LiveScribe pen, which allows a wider range of interaction, the Mobile Note Taker doesn't require you to buy special pre-printed paper. All you need to carry with you is the pen, and a tiny receiver that will hook on the top or one of the corner of your usual notepad or agenda.

The first intended usage (referred to as off-line mode) is to record whatever you write while away from your computer, then download it by plugging the mini-usb cable to the receiver when back home. Then you can simply archive your notes as is, or extract your drawings and process your writing trough an OCR.
The box says that you can save up to 100 pages of notes and the manual claims about 80 pages. This probably comes from the size difference between A4 and Letter (slightly longer) formats these different evaluations where based on.

The second usage (referred to as on-line mode) allows you to directly interact with your computer with the receiver plugged-in. You have then two possible modes to use your pen as a mouse, or as a ... pen. It offer a more convenient use than the tiny Wacom Volito for instance, as long as you can live without the pressure sensitivity as Note Taker doesn't have it. However, the touch and feel is much more natural and the final result, especially for handwriting looks far more natural to me.

The box contains: 1 pen, 1 received, 1 usb cable, 1 unique ink refill (not a spare refill, it has to be inserted into the empty pen), 1 pouch, 2 CD-ROM and 2 x SR41 button cells for the pen (the receiver recharges using the USB cable).

The hardware is immediately recognized on XP/Vista and 7 upon connecting and would work as a mouse, (once pressing the pen button once) before even installing any software.

The software included is called Note Taker 3.3 and will be used mainly to retrieve and store your off-line notes.
There is a second one on a mini-cd with called MyScript Note Lite from VisionObjects. It is not more than a demo version of the already old MyScript Note. The Lite version is very limited and also outdated, so, instead of installing it, you should download the trial version of the actual equivalent: MyScript Studio Note Edition.
I gave it a try, and compared to the disappointing MyScript Note, this MyScript Studio gave surprisingly good results at the challenging task of recognizing my own writing!

The firmware... yes, the device is firmware-upgradeable although it is not mentioned in the manual. However the version from Medion is the most recent 1.81 as reported by the firmware updated utility downloaded from Pegatech where they provide the v.1.76, so there's no need to flash at this point.

In conclusion, this is a nice gadget. Unless you've got already Windows Vista or 7 and Office 2007, it may require some additional spending like MyScript Studio to unleash its full potential. My primary use will be as a replacement of my Wacom tablet and, in line with that idea, I plan to keep the ink refill when it goes empty, it will save me from wasting paper when using it in mouse mode!

Pros:
- Easy to setup
- Does job as expected
- Does not require dedicated preprinted paper
- M21 standard ink refills. (Specific iNote refill found for €1.6 on eBay)

Cons:
- limited manual
- ugly software
- not pressure-sensitive
- getting OCR to work reliably is a long process

Other pens similar to Medion Digital Note Taker MD86149:
- Pegasus Digital Pen M210 (this is the original manufacturer)
- IOGear Cordless Mobile Digital Scribe
- Apcom E-pens APPEG-030 Mobile Notes
- iNote Digital pen on eBay

- others

Similar technology applied to interactive whiteboards.

Additional Resources: Documentation, software and SDK can be found at Pegatech.com
see also: dedicated Google group, and blog.

The geek Xmas 2009 shopping basket

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:42:00 +0000

The festive online shopping deadline is coming fast (taking into account the shipping delay necessary to get those items from eBay, DealExtreme, Iwoot, Firebox, DX and such...)

So here's my short list of gadgets of interest for this year. I hope it will help you finding the inspiration:

Idea #1: A Cassette MP3 Player
For some reason, many new cars are still coming with an cassette auto-radio, and at best, a CD player that doesn't play MP3's. The most popular solution was to plug one of those MP3 players with FM transmitter but the sound quality would be quite poor and depend on unoccupied frequencies available.

Now you can put an MP3 player shaped as a cassette directly into your auto-radio. Much nicer! It also works as a standalone player.

Found at Chinavasion.com for €17.51 incl. 2GB SD card.

Audience: owners of old or French car.

Idea #2: A Digital USB Microscope
The interest of this gadget really depends on the price you'll pay for it.
At close to €70 (called "new low price"!) from Firebox, I'd say, forget it. But from €28 (shipping included) on eBay, you may think twice.

Audience: student, teacher, engineer, hobbyist...

Idea #3: An Atari joystick key chain

After the full size re-edition of the Atari VCS 2600 joystick a few years ago, there's now a tiny keychain version, and it's still playable on a TV screen!
My only regret is that it come with only 2 games when a hundred would have fit easily. This gadget is NTSC only.

Found at Firebox for €17

Audience: nostalgic geeks, kids from 40 and over.

Idea #4: An USB Missile launcher

Probably the most useless usb gadget on the market. For real fun, couple this with a web/ip-camera and remotely control the host computer to fire at innocent people passing by...

Found on eBay, cheapest: item #390118120613 for €25.6 delivered.
Enhanced version with Webcam on Firebox for €45.

Target: any human or pet.

Idea #5: A Digital Note Taker

I didn't like those electronic pens that work only on special and expensive paper. A much nicer alternative consist of a wireless receiver that captures everything done with it's dedicated pen (using standard ink refill), then, the receiver memory is dumped to a PC where it can be archived or processed through the provided OCR program. It can also nicely replace a graphic tablet although the accuracy is probably not as high. It was found commonly at over €200 realier this year, but it now dropped to €59.99.

Found in Aldi stores @ €59.99 (Medion branded) and eBay, item #220506455598 at €59.59

Audience: student, professionals, kids,...

Idea #6: A Binary watch

Maybe you know someone so geek he's drifting toward being rather a neird ?
Well you'll have a gift for this person too:

While a binary watch is really for a selected audience, most of them found on eBay are just stylish enough to start and finish their life in a drawer.
But this particular Ovo binary watch found at IWOOT is far more elegant and reasonably sized.

Found on I Want One of Those at €22

Audience: hardcore geek and casual neirds

Idea #7: A Rollnet kit

If your garden is too windy and your house too small for a full size table, this simple idea let you play table tennis on any flat surface.
The Artengo Rollnet is also reasonably priced.

Found in Decathlon stores from €14.90 (€19.90 with 2 bats and 3 balls)

Audience: casual tennis table players

Idea #8: the ultimate tea and coffee travel mug

The Double Shot model from Planetary Design is the last mug you may ever need. It does everything and comes complete with the traditional coffee lid, but also the plunger, and, concealed in the base, a small storage box for a refill of coffee, tea or sugar...

Found from around €25 in various places:

Coffee Pot Shop

Greystones Coffee Pots

Amazon.co.uk marketplace

Audience: Coffee and Tea lovers (with a geeky twist)

About winning "Hands Down" (WC2010)

noreply@blogger.com (Bubbah) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:00:00 +0000

You know, I think it comes from a cultural difference, this French way of winning their qualification to the FWC2010.

In English, there's this expression "Winning hands down". The origin is supposed to come from the horse racing world where a jockey would win so easily that he could afford to release the grip on the horse's reins.

I could not find the origin of the French equivalent expression which is: "Gagner haut la main"(Winning hand high)...but now I guess it comes from soccer!

Well done, Tony Parker!