rwireless

Wireless home weather station

2011-12-30T22:37:00.008+02:00

I had been searching some time for a system to log inside temperatures in several rooms and compare it to outside temperature. Then I found this setup, that is relatively inexpensive and met my needs nicely. It is wireless, (obviously to be in this blog) and I can easily look at the graphs with my iPad2 from anywhere in the world, even my sofa at home. What I got was an Oregon Scientific WMR88 and since it does not have logging or internet connection, I connected it with usb to an Iomega iConnect. As weather station software I use Meteohub, which is loaded onto an usb stick that has both the firmware and the logging space on it. The Meteohub connected to the iConnect then calculates and uploads on regular intervals the graph images and the data to a simple internet site that I can access from anywhere with any device with any browser. There are also built-in possibilities to use more advanced web templates, with java etc. but the compatibility that comes with simple web pages is what I want for now. Currently I am only logging from one outdoor temperature, two indoor temperature sensors plus the sensors on the weather station itself. I am also testing the wind meter outside, but the rain meter is not yet in use, because I expect it will freeze here outside soon. I really liked the simplicity in the setup and also the robustness, it has worked perfectly for a month now and I already learned a lot, although I have not found the best settings for the central heating yet. One simple log page with graphs can be found here.

BD list for Android monitor apps

2011-11-02T16:57:00.005+02:00

Have not used either of my Android phones since I got my iPad2, but last week I got back my Milestone after a friend upgraded it to 2.3.7. So I looked a little bit around what new apps are available. From old habit I looked for some network monitor apps and found this interesting list of "monitor" apps for Android. There are no such apps for iOS5, so I tried the G-mon 2.x and noticed it had been upgraded a lot and seemed alright. I will sure try some other similar apps as well, at least until there will be any available for Apple iOS.

Wireless Marine Tracking for iPad

2011-09-14T23:19:00.006+03:00

I just recently bought a new DSLR camera and have now been taking huge amount of pictures every time I go shooting, trying to learn at the same time. With the wireless Eye-fi SD memory card it is nice to immediately be able to see the pictures on my bigger and better iPad2 screen. When I have time I try to adjust the settings (mainly aperture and shutter speed) and then right away try to take a better picture of the same subject. Maybe I have just always loved them or maybe because they move relatively slow, I feel that big ships makes the perfect practice subjects. Now to make this photography subject even more fun I have started to use this Marine traffic web service to get info about all registered marine vehicles that wirelessly transmit their location to an international database. There are also a lot of nice pictures that people have uploaded from all around the world, these are good for comparison and also just nice to watch. There is also a Marinetraffic iPad and iPhone application which I am sure will be a lot of fun also when traveling.

Direct upload from camera to iPad

2011-06-10T16:07:00.003+03:00

I wrote in beginning of last year about the cool Eye-Fi SD Wi-Fi memory card for cameras. I have been using my card very actively for more than a year and must say that I am very pleased. Sure, there are still some places where the "WLAN AP geo-data in the database" is missing (or even some places on earth without any WLAN AP´s...) and then obviously the geo-data will be lacking in the photos Exif info, but that can then be fixed with "old fashioned methods". The geo-data tagging feature is very cool, but it is the automatic wireless upload that I really enjoy the most. Since last month when I got an iPad2 I have really enjoyed using the iPad2 to watch and show photos on-the-move. The screen is very good, so no need for a laptop on the trips anymore and the iPad2 is really portable so it is nice to have with me all the time. And now all this got even better with wireless upload feature, the "Direct Mode".

Not illegal to surf open wlan in Finland anymore

2011-03-06T23:11:00.006+02:00

Two years ago in March I blogged here, that the Court of Appeal in Finland ruled "that a person using a neighbour’s wireless network without permission was committing a crime". Well this will no longer be a crime from next week onwards, if the planned law will be changed according to this new law proposal. The proposed addition to the original law text says something like: "it is not illegal to connect to internet via an unsecured wireless connection". The new law is planned to be valid from Tuesday 15th of March onwards.

Subscriber mobile network coverage map

2010-10-02T19:37:00.006+03:00

When surfing the Android market I found again an interesting application cellumap. This application also has a web page: www.cellumap.com from where you can see your (and others uploaded cellular coverage data). The way of making it possible for the subscribers to create coverage maps are an interesting idea (and something that was expected sooner or later). This application is also available for Symbian and Blackberry. Their about page describes the idea clearly, the only thing needed now is for subscribers to actually upload some data to the cellumap server...
Another interesting addition would be to combine the cellumap app with the www.speedtest.net app; since from cellumap the throughput data is missing and from speedtest.net app is missing the actual cellId.

Speedtest application Iperf

2010-08-25T21:41:00.003+03:00

Every now and then I want to test the speed of my wireless connection. Often I have used some test site on the web like www.speedtest.net. However, the test results from the internet based test sites are not very reliable, because they are affected by other users "out there". Therefore I have sometimes used my own ftp servers when I wanted only to test my wireless network at home between two computers. Iperf is a very nice and simple application for this purpose. Today from the Market I installed Iperf also on my Motorola Milestone with Android 2.1., and tested wireless speeds between the phone and my Acer Aspire One Z5. The AA1 netbook is running Ubuntu NetBook Remix 10.4. and it is easy to install the Iperf application directly from the Ubuntu Software Center. Iperf is also available for Windows and Mac. Below are some results when I tested the wireless speeds between the phone and the netbook:

Ubuntu as server
Acer Aspire One:
riku@aa1:~$ iperf -s
------------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.3 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 4] local 10.0.1.18 port 5001 connected with 10.0.1.6 port 51080
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 4] 0.0-10.1 sec 5.94 MBytes 4.93 Mbits/sec

Milestone:
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 10.0.1.18, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 16.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 6] local 10.0.1.6 port 51080 connected with 10.0.1.18 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 6] 0.0-10.0 sec 5.94 MBytes 4.97 Mbits/sec
/data/data/com.magicandroidapps.iperf/bin/iperf:ignoring extra argument-- iperf

Android as server
Acer Aspire One:
^Criku@aa1:~$ iperf -c 10.0.1.6
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 10.0.1.6, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 16.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 10.0.1.18 port 33590 connected with 10.0.1.6 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.0 sec 8.06 MBytes 6.74 Mbits/sec
riku@aa1:~$

Milestone:
------------------------------------------------------------
Server listening on TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.3 KByte (default)
-----------------------------------------------------------
[ 7] local 10.0.1.6 port 5001 connected with 10.0.1.18 33590
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 7] 0.0-9.8 sec 8.06 MBytes 6.91 Mbits/sec

Wireless WebCam

2010-08-12T22:55:00.005+03:00

The title is boring, I know, but I actually found this device after reading some other blogs and it made me just want to buy this device and try it. The device is IP camera model FI8908W from Foscam and the very nice blogs I read were on Gadget Victims , with several posts about the device and Tekniikan armoilla (in Finnish language). I bought it from seller "musicatech" from ebay. After waiting for the shipment over two weeks I read this post about clones, luckily I got some comfort seeing that the seller was a preferred one by the manufacturer. So I waited another week and today I finally got it. First I was a bit concerned about maybe having to upgrade the device immediately, having nowadays less time to play with gadgets. The reason I thought an immediate upgrade would be needed were the posts I read about the device only supporting "active x" and since I try to avoid using that... Luckily this was not the case, the device came with software that already had the support for "non-active-x" browsers, "Device Embeded Web UI Version: 2.4.8.12" and "Device Firmware Version: 2.4.8.12". I also found from the Android Market this nice application, "Tiny DVR" for my Motorola Milestone that I can use to see live feed on my phone from the webcam. Everything worked so far, dynamic dns, motion detection, ftp server and email upload. Also the image quality seems ok. The testing continues...

"Field test" for Milestone / Android 2.1.

2010-07-06T19:48:00.002+03:00

When I recently changed my mobilephone from HTC G1 with Android 1.6 to Motorola Milestone with 2.1. I was missing a field test mode and the CellFinder app. Only thing that is remotely similar that I found so far is the app called "Antennas" that you can download for free from the Android Market. There is also a help file available on the internet.

Mac Wardriving applications

2010-01-28T23:11:00.003+02:00

I only have a Mac Mini at home and no laptop (or iPad ) yet, so I have not tried Wardriving with any Mac/Apple products yet. However since I have written about the Wardriving subject before and mentioned several applications that are available (except the Android Wardriving application, which I will try to test and post something about soon.) I think it is ok to mention a good post about Wardriving applications for Mac that I read in another blog, called MacZeppelin .

Wireless photo positioning with Eye-Fi

2010-01-07T11:32:00.017+02:00

Just received a new Eye-Fi SD card for my camera. What makes this card special is that it automatically transfers my photos from my camera to my computer when both are in the range of the same WLAN AP that I have predefined. I already tested the feature, it was very easy to set up and it works very well. There are also more advanced cards that allows you to create ad-hoc connections between your camera and your computer directly. There are also options to load your photos directly to an online photo web service, like picasaweb for example. Another cool feature is the automatic geotagging possibility using WPS (Wifi Positioning System). The idea to put my photos on a map have always pleased me, it is nice to later see where I have taken the pictures. I have so far done that in several ways, either manually for example with picasa. Lately I have actually done it by carrying always a separate gps unit with me and continuously logged my position and then postprocessed the pictures with a software so that the time of the camera and the time of the gps logs have matched. Then the software have written into the EXIF data of the photos the actual coordinates where the pictures were taken. I think it is nice to geotag the photos, because if you take thousands of pictures each year like me, then it could later be very difficult to remember where the pictures were taken. This is not the case anymore since the coordinates will now be automatically written into the EXIF data in the picutres.

GSM/3G Fieldtestmonitor for PC or Notebook

2009-11-25T19:32:00.001+02:00

I searched for a good fieldtestmonitor to monitoring GSM or 3G-Network and found an interesting program in the internet named Multi Network Monitor (MNM 1.2.0) from Arne Kuhlmann.

I tried the applikation on my Q10 Air under Windows XP:

The function:
Over Com-ports you can connect 8 mobiles or modems with the computer. Also a GPS-Reciever you can connect to show your location in an Google-Map in a own window. If you have an CLF (Cell-Info-File) from your network operator you can import this file. Then the program show your more information about your serving basestation an the neighbor-stations.

Following informations you see on the main window:

Level (-dBm)
Cell-ID
Local Area Code
Network-Code

The program is freeware and you can download it from here: --> download

Arne Kuhlmanns Homepage (more software and information only in German)

Screenshots:

Googlenteering in Izmir

2009-04-25T21:24:00.005+03:00

Today (again) I really found my Google Android useful. I was taking a walk with no destination and did some logging of my track at the same time. The city was unfamiliar to me and I had no map and understand only a few words of the local language. No worries, since I had my electronic map with me that always showed me the "You are here." spot on the map. It was also nice to orienteer since the arrow pointed in which direction I was going. I also took a few pictures that I uploaded to my picasa album so my friends at home could see were I was. After beeing two weeks in very nice, but hectic Istanbul it was really nice to have a relaxed walk in the nice city of Izmir.

Illegal in Finland to surf on open wireless

2009-04-03T22:23:00.006+03:00

The Finnish court of law have hard to keep up-to-date... "Court of Appeal has ruled that a person using a neighbour’s wireless network without permission was committing a crime. The accused had used his neighbour’s open, unsecured WiFi connection and the court found that the man was guilty of the mild crime of unauthorised use and imposed an eight-day fine." Read more here.

Free Wireless from Google ?

2009-04-01T17:55:00.004+03:00

Exactly two years ago to date Google presented this amazing wireless system.

Acer Aspire One and gOS

2009-03-24T08:22:00.016+02:00

Tried the gOS operating system (built on Ubuntu 8.04) on my AA1 with a bootable usb that I made following these instructions made by pendrivelinux. It looks ok and it has most of the applications pre-installed that I normally use, like Firefox and Thunderbird, but there are still some issues with the AA1 mobile broadband and wireless drivers I did not sort out yet, so I will keep Ubuntu 8.10 as the linux distribution on the AA1 for now. With Ubuntu 8.10 and the new 2.6.27-11-generic Kernel I have all the wireless stuff working on the AA1, including the built-in 3G/HSPA modem. I have Google Gears installed so I can use many of the google applications, like calendar and docs etc. offline also now anyway with Ubuntu 8.10.

Hidden menus in Android phone

2009-03-23T13:11:00.015+02:00

I noticed some hidden menus in the Android Dev Phone 1 (ADP1). By entering following code sequence *#*#4636#*#* (*#*#info#*#*) in the Dialer application, you get access to Phone and Battery information menus, with some "extra" information. In the Phone information menu there is also a place at the very bottom of the menu to add your own carrier SMSC number, so that you can send text (sms) messages. Access to the the other "hidden menu" is by entering following code sequence *#*#7262626#*#* (*#*#ramanam#*#*) in the Dialer application. It is actually a built-in FieldTest application that gives a lot of information about the mobile networks (both 2G and 3G). Since the "FieldTest menu" is actually an application, you can download the application AnyCut and use it to add a shortcut to the FieldTest application "on the screen". Several other phones also have similar "FieldTest menus", for example in iPhone and some Nokias it is *3001#12345#*. There are also some free applications for different phones that show carrier information, such as for example PyNetMony, NetMonitor and CellTrack. For Android there is at least one free application for this called CellFinder that also use the built-in gps when trying to show basestations on the integrated google map.

AA1, Ubuntu 8.10 and built-in 3G now ok

2009-03-15T18:43:00.005+02:00

Last week I got my AA1 back from repair, but did not have much playing with it again yet. I only tried some new stuff like a2dp (bleutooth stereo) with my wireless headphones and that worked ok. The music playback was not the best, but with skype they seemed to be working well, more on that later. One thing that I had problems to get to work earlier was Ubuntu 8.10 and the built-in 3G / HSPA. I did a normal system recommended upgrade today and after just starting the netbook again to my suprise it connected automatically to my 3G service provider. I had done a mobile broadband profile for my 3G service provider earlier, but had not got 3G working, but now it does, nice. The Kernel is now 2.6.27-11-generic, so that is new, but the network manager application is still version 0.7.0, so it seems that the network manager was not upgraded. I have to look around in the system a bit more, but this was a nice Sunday evening suprise.

Android OTA upgrade

2009-02-26T08:27:00.006+02:00

This morning there was a message in the phone saying "This is system upgrade 1/2, which is an upgrade to the installer." I selected YES to upgrade and the phone booted almost immidiately. After starting up again there was a new message saying that system upgrade 2/2 would be next, I pressed YES again on the touchscreen and this time the phone booted a few times. It took maybe ten minutes, but after that it was up and running normally again. After the upgrade I looked after any visible upgrades in the About menu and there I could see that this time both the Baseband and Kernel versions had been upgraded. I updated this to my text file and opened the map program next. When starting the Map program there was a note asking if I want to start using "Google Latitude", I accepted the terms and could see that my position was then upgraded, so that the friends I have allowed can see my current position real-time. I will add some pictures here later, but so far I just want to comment that the manual upgrade yesterday and the OTA upgrade this morning seems to have worked well and are worth doing.

Android Dev Phone firmware upgrade

2009-02-25T22:55:00.032+02:00

Today I upgraded the firmware of the phone from 1.0 to 1.1. This was not a difficult process since there are many blogs with good instructions, the hard part was to choose which instruction to follow. I decided to try the one by David Hindersson because it seemed to be easiest for me. Many of the other instructions also seemed to require erasing all the data and I did not want to start downloading all the applications again. Worst thing would be to manually have to enter all the contact information again. Luckily with this google phone it is not necessary since all of my contacts and other info like "Calendar", "My Docs" and "My Maps" etc. are stored on the web in my free google account and syncronized with the phone. One reason for upgrading the phone now manually was because I read that 1.1 will have a new feature called "System updates" which will later make it possible to receive also updates by OTA ("over-the-air"). After the upgrade this proved to be true, at least there was a new header with that name in the About phone menu. I downloaded the software packages mentioned in the instruction to my own network server just in case they are needed again, both the usb driver package that seems to work ok with XP and the Android software package also. I also wrote a text file with the software before and after. The text file also includes the applications I have installed on the phone now and the commands given at the prompt during the upgrade. The textfile can be found in the android folder here. I will put the zip packages there also. The picture with the skating "Androids" is taken during the upgrade.

SE P1i, HTC G1 and Nokia E71

2009-02-21T19:51:00.002+02:00

Today I did some comparing with the Sony Ericsson P1i and Nokia E71 Symbian mobilephones and HTC G1 with the new Android operating system. Even though they look similar on the outside, they are very different on the inside. Yesterday I also compared the G1 with an Apple iPhone and must say that the G1 and iPhone have much more in common than the other ones with Symbian operating system.

GPSed Track "Sibbo-Turku"

2009-02-21T16:41:00.009+02:00

Below is recorded using Sony Ericsson P1i with external bluetooth GPS and the program GPSed, it strangely crasched once.
View my new track "Sibbo-tku" started in Finland, Southern Finland, Vantaa.
Powered by GPSed.com - Free Mobile GPS Tracking Service

Here is same track recorded wtih HTC G1 Android and "My Tracks" program.

New Turku freeway

2009-02-21T11:41:00.010+02:00

Below is a post directly from my mobile of a track that I recorded with the G1 this morning. It is from the new freeway between Turku and Helsinki, opened last week. There are many tunnels and I tried to put a waypoint on most of them, also if you look closely on the map you can see gaps in the redline where the tunnels are (probably becasue of lack of gps coverage). The application used was a freeware downloaded from the Android Market called "My Tracks". I have tried it and several other free applications for three days now and they have all worked very well, just as expected. Some have worked better than the commercial ones that I have tried on other phones before. With the free applications working this good, I am sure that there will now come also good commercial applications worth buying for the Android mobile phones.

I think you might be interested in this map: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=104516319859393857718.0004636a87a5014dad8bf

HTC G1 car charger

2009-02-21T11:14:00.004+02:00

Good with standard usb connectors. I had bought a cheap car to usb charger a long time ago, believing it could be useful one day and today it was. This picture was taken with the G1 in a moving car *with not so good light conditions( and sent to the blog directly from the phone.

GeeOne and PeeOne

2009-02-20T18:13:00.004+02:00

Just testing to send a picture to my blog directly from Picasa. Works well like all Google products. I have now had the new HTC G1 phone for two days and I must say that I am very pleased. The phone is ok, nice size, the touch screen is very good and also the keyboard is good, only thing that worries me a bit is the battery life, but just have to remember to keep charging it and buy a 2nd battery as I did for my SE P1i. The hardware now has also built-in gps and accelerometer, but it is not the hardware that impresses me most, it is the software. Android really seems to work, I have downloaded and installed more than fifty different applications of which I have uninstalled about ten, mainly because of duplications. No problems like halting or even slowing down the system, all is still working with good speed. It is open source so it is free for anyone to create own applications and many have done so already, with probably more than a thousand free applications for download. All of the applications I have downloaded so far have worked well and many of them are really good (not to mention free of charge also). THere are actually so many applications ready that now with the possibility to code own apps, it is hard to find an idea for an application that is not already invented.

AA1 for repair

2009-02-18T22:08:00.003+02:00

My Acer Aspire One just stopped working two weeks ago. I called support and within two hours DHL came and picked it up. That was fast, but now it has taken over two weeks and it is still at repair, so I called them today and they said that they had ordered a part from abroad and are still waiting for it. This is not nice, but at least I have a G1 new wireless toy to play with until I get my AA1 back.

Testing my new G1

2009-02-18T18:50:00.001+02:00

Just testing to post to my blog from this Google Android HTC Dream G1 developer mobilephone. Feels ok so far.

Google Android HTC Dream ordered

2009-02-17T14:42:00.006+02:00

Late Sunday evening I decided to order the Google Android HTC Dream mobilephone for developers. Today I got a call that it will be delivered to me tommorrow, this I would say is very fast service. Yesterday I downloaded and installled the Android SDK and with Eclipse on my Ubuntu did the first "Hello World" (actually "Hello Android") example. I also tried some other examples and tutorials. After one day of trying this out, it seems so far like an interesting addition to the market. One presentation of the device can be found here.

AA1 and the Wireless Atheros driver

2009-01-29T18:26:00.007+02:00

I got a bit suprised when I went to check if there were any driver upgrades on the official Acer Europe download page. The wireless driver on that page is now downgraded to an older version. I downloaded the v7.6.1.149 and stored it on my external harddrive and was planning to upgrade, but did not do it yet. So now the wireless driver version on the Acer download site is the same as the one that the AA1 came installed with v.7.6.0.264. Updated "my own list" also.

AA1 and Infrared adapter

2009-01-24T20:52:00.005+02:00

Today I added one more wireless thing to my Acer Aspire One. Even though IrDa is not commonly used anymore, there are still few applications that use it. I use a program called WebLink from Polar to upload my excercise data from my S725x to the PolarPersonalTrainer web application. Since the AA1 does not have a built-in infrared port an adapter is needed. They are inexpensive and XP installed it without a problem, like usual. The IrDA adapter is much bigger than the bluetooth adapter (wrote about it in an earlier post), but it is really not a problem because the IrDA adapter will not be used on the move like the bluetooh adapter. One thing I now need to investigate with IrDA on my netbook is maybe it could be used as an home theatre remote control also...

Wardriving by the Police

2009-01-17T22:06:00.009+02:00

Now the authorities are starting to wardrive also, at least in India. This was recently reported by the Indian newspaper, CIOL :
"The drive will start at Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC), the business hub located in the western-central city suburb, followed by residential areas at Malabar Hill, south Mumbai.
As part of this move, an 80-member Mumbai Police officers' team armed with gadgets and equipment including laptops, Internet enable mobile phones and devices will visit residences randomly across the city to detect unsecured Internet networks."
Would be interesting to know what the "gadgets and devices" are. Could be a good idea that all of the WLAN access point equipment would be delivered security enabled by default.

AA1 BT GPS and Ubuntu 8.10

2009-01-17T01:34:00.014+02:00

Did some more testing again and noticed some interesting things. It seems that the bluetooth stuff in Ubuntu 8.10 is somewhat broken. All went well with my mobile phone (see earlier post), because I can enter any pin code for the bluetooth connection in it. When I tried to connect my bluetooth gps device, the plug&play stopped for a while (like it somethimes do with linux and wireless stuff). What made the plug&play to stop was the "new feature" that automatically generates a random pin code for the bluetooth connection. This is was ok for my mobile phone, but not for my bluetooth gps, because there is no way for me to enter or change the default pin code for it. Luckily I remembered an old and useful linux command hcitool from almost 10 years back when I also used command line to connect to internet using the gprs modem in my mobile phone. After I got the bluetooth gps device paired I also had to add the device "mac address" to the file "/etc/bluetooth/rfcomm.conf". Then I started the program gpsd with command "gpsd /dev/rfcomm0" and after that the program Kismet. Even though the program Netstumbler is good for windows, I still rather use Kismet in linux if possible. An earlier test today was also interesting. I did a very short drive test, about 3km, first with Netstumbler and then exactly the same drive route with Kismet only an hour later. I did not really expect that there would be a big difference in discovered wlan ap´s, but I was suprised when I compared the logs. Kismet discovered 485, but Netstumbler only 167 and this was excatly the same route and same hardware. I will make another comparison test when I got time.

W-Drive test in Turku

2009-01-15T00:21:00.003+02:00

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="https://basilika.dyndns.org/shares/public/temp/w2_map.html"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Click here for the map&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Above map shows some WLAN access points that Netstumbler found when I did some testing with my aa1 netbook (more on that in the previous post). The above map is created with a very nice application called GPS Visualizer. After logging the scans I uploaded them to wigle.net just to see if there are any new ones since my last upload in 2007. There were 82 WLAN AP´s in the first file and 51 of them were new. Many of them did not have any encryption activated, but they are perhaps wlan hot-spots that have some other way of security in place. Because of so many new ones it would be interesting to do a better drive test, but I don´t think I will have for that now. The main idea was to test how well this little netbbook is performing and the results from that was very positive.

AA1, Wardriving and live Google Earth

2009-01-14T22:45:00.005+02:00

After some new testing I now have a nice setup for wardriving. Netstumbler program is getting its gps data from the bluetooth gps and Google Earth (pro) is getting its gps data from the other gps connected via the usb to serial adapter. GE is also getting the map data via the built-in hsdpa modem and plotting it real-time on the screen. The more I test different things with this little aa1 netbook, the more I am impressed what it can do. There was no sign of any programs becoming slower, even though I did some web surfing and read emails at the same time those other programs and services were running. The picture is taken in the car with my mobile phone and it does only have a light, but no flash, so the picture it is not very sharp.

AA1 and bluetooth

2009-01-14T21:08:00.006+02:00

Yesterday I bought a very small and inexpensive usb bluetooth dongle just to have bt if needed, since there is no built-in bt in the aa1. When I connected it, XP recognized immidiately and I was able to send a file from aa1 to my phone without any problems. Also all other services of the mobile were ready to use like modem etc. Next I tried to connect the bluetooth gps that I got together with my SE P1i and that also worked without any problems. First I tested it with the Netstumbler program just to see if any gps data is received and that worked fine. Then I tried it with Google Earth, but it did not work. Have to do more testing...

AA1 (XP) WLAN and 3G drivers

2009-01-11T23:00:00.006+02:00

I already upgraded the BIOS from v. 3114 to v. 3309 (as described in an earlier post), so decided to try and upgrade some drivers also. Before I upgraded the bios I read all the release notes of the newer versions and noticed some interesting improved stuff. Today I guess I was just bored and I had a look at the official acer europe download site again if there were any new drivers. I have them downloaded on my own network drive also here (just in case). The driver versions are generally described in the name of the file, except for the 3G driver. I just tried to make the upgrade anyway if there would be a clue during the upgrade process of what the "new" driver version might be. Well, no clues and I found out that it was the same version v. 4.0.2.32 as the one that originally came installed. Because of this I decided to make a list of what are currently installed and what new ones are available, the 1st version of the list is also here. It seems that there are newer versions at least of the WLAN and LAN drivers.

Mobile digital TV on the AA1

2009-01-09T19:35:00.012+02:00

Inspired by the last successful test to connect a gps to my netbook, I decided to test another old equipment that was in the same box as the old gps. I had bought a Digital TV USB adaptor for my previous laptop, but it did not work with the installed Windows 2000, so I had forgot all about it. Now with XP in my netbook , it was time to try it again. I could not find the CD´s that had come with it, so I searched with google for "Anysee E30" and found the correct download site very easily and installed the programs from there. It could not have been any easier. The program is working well, the screensize is perfect from close range, the screen is very clear and good and also very sharp picture (because it is digital here in Finland) and with the larger 7200 mAh battery, this is truly a very nice Mobile TV solution.

AA1 and GPS with USB to Serial Adapter

2009-01-09T17:57:00.013+02:00

In my earlier post I wrote that missing things from my new netbook might start to bother after a while. Today I decided to test to connect a gps with my netbook. It became a bit interesting for a short while since I noticed that even I have two different gps devices neither of them are possible to connect to the Acer Aspire One directly, this because the newer gps is bluetooth only and the older one is serial only. The netbook has no built-in bluetooth and it does not have a serial-port either. Luckily a friend had an extra Aten UC232A USB to Serial adapter to lend. With this adapter I could then connect my old "serial only" Magellan GPS 12 XL to the netbook. I did have to find the correct driver from here for the adapter first since strangely XP did not recognize it automatically, but after installing the driver it worked fine. To test that the gps connection was ok, I used a program called Netstumbler (it is a program for windows to monitor WLAN AP´s). (Now as I reminded myself of these wlan monitoring programs I also have to test the Kismet linux application in my Ubuntu 8.10.) Later I am planning to use maybe Google Earth and also other applications for marine navigation etc.

Netbook owner for a month

2009-01-07T22:31:00.008+02:00

I have now had this little Acer Aspire One for a month and I have been very happy with it. Everything is working well and there has been no problems with it. This is usually true for many of the "toys" I have bought. When it is new everything feels perfect in the beginning and any stuff that is missing does not worry me. Then after a month or so I start to look at the "new investment" in more details. This is also the case with this netbook investment. Well after a month it still feels like a good "investment". I am still using the XP that came with it, but I also use the Ubuntu 8.10 that I installed almost immidiately after buying this (using wubi, see my earlier post). A short summary what I think so far; the keyboard is smaller than on full size laptops, but not bad at all in my opinion. The size of the netbook itself is really good, it is very nice to carry around. I bought the bigger battery and that gives over 8 hours which is very nice. The suspend/hibernate works very well in both XP and Ubuntu, just by folding the display down and open it again and this saves battery time when on the move and only using the smaller original 2400mAh battery. About XP, well it is windows with all the virus concerns, but it works well. About Ubuntu 8.10, it also works well, except that I still do not have the built-in Option Globetrotter HSxPA GTM380 module working. Nice specs on the GTM380, supports 7,2 Mbits downlink and also 2 Mbits in the uplink direction. Hope that it will possible to use all the speed capacity of the HSxPA module here in Finland this year...

Wireless memorystick

2009-01-03T15:13:00.005+02:00

Recently I bought a new usb memorystick of the size 32GB and now I am trying to get used to the big size. I already installed a bootable Fedora Linux 10 on it but still have almost 30GB left for other "normal" use. Normally I use three different laptops almost daily so the ability to always have my easy to use "home folder" or "personal storage space" with me would be nice. Would be I say, since I feel that the "easy to use" part is not true with the usb sticks. At least the ones I have had have felt a bit "cheap" and attaching them to the computer has not always been just "plug&play". I also have network storage space available that is always on-line and that I can access securely (ssl at the moment, but could use even stronger encryption if needed) from anywhere, but the connection speeds are not fast enough for moving larger files. So what am I looking for? It is a portable storage device with at least 32GB (secure) storage space, preferably more, but the "new thing" about it is that it would have built-in WLAN that is easy to use. (Bluetooth is not as common as WLAN, for example my new AA1 does not have bt, but my P1 mobile phone has wlan.) Hopefully the "wireless memorystick" is already under development...

rwireless.info registered

2009-01-03T14:46:00.005+02:00

I registered rwireless.info while testing different sevices. The name blogspot is not bad at all, but I did the registration testing some different web services. (The one I used for url forwarding worked well and very fast, the url was registered and forwarded within a few minutes.) It is also nicer with shorther names when using portable devices with smaller keyboards.

Fedora 10 and GT MAX 7,2 READY

2009-01-01T18:11:00.008+02:00

Did some testing with the not working 3G/HSDPA card (see more in my previous post below) and a live Fedora 10 linux version. It looked to "go further", but still the end result is the same, no working connection. It actually found the card and even started to try the connection, but not yet. The log from the test is here. I also tried the Fedora USB creator to make a bootable usb stick and that worked very nicely, as long as the pc running the program had enough memory.

Ubuntu 8.10 and Option HSDPA card

2008-12-31T12:50:00.014+02:00

When trying to get 3G/HSDPA working with Ubuntu 8.10 I noticed an interesting thing. With the laptop HP compaq nc8000 and two different Option Globetrotter GT MAX 7,2 READY cards the result was different. With one card it worked out-of-the-box, but with the other it did not at all. The one on the left did not work and the one on the right worked immidiately as it should. One thing that is different is that I have upgraded the card on the left to handle 7,2 Mbits. The link to the log is here. The official link to the card is here. EDIT: Still not working with the upgraded left card, some more logs here , when after trying some "rezero" approach described in the ubuntuforums thread. Have not tried the ozerocdoff yet, but maybe next year...

AA1, Ubuntu 8.10 and wireless

2008-12-20T19:00:00.005+02:00

I am now trying Ubuntu 8.10 on my Acer Aspire One A150. First I was thinking that I would wait before trying linux on my new netbook since all was working well with XP, but then a reminder from the pre-installed antivirus program got me exploring the linux alternative again. I found a nice alternative way to try Ubuntu on the netbook, instead of the dualboot hassle (or booting from an usb stick). It is called Wubi and is a free program that is really plug&play. It makes a virtual disk and installs Ubuntu there like an application. It is still dualboot, but the process is very simple and also the uninstall is really easy, which can be done fron the normal "add/remove programs menu" in XP. The link to the official guide is : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide The wireless card did not work when I booted to Ubuntu 8.10, but there is a straight forward guide at the Ubuntu community help pages for Acer Aspire One : https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne So now I am surfing wirelessly with my netbook, but I still have not got the built-in Option 3G modem to work with Ubuntu 8.10 yet...

Drivers etc. for Acer Aspire One

2008-12-14T17:58:00.004+02:00

I have heard the saying that "Do not fix anything that is not broken"..., but I started to gather all kind of updates etc. for my new Acer Aspire One A150 anyway on my external harddrive. The link to folder is : http://buffalonas.com/basilika2/public/aa1

Mini Laptop with 3G

2008-12-14T13:47:00.003+02:00

I now finally bought a mini laptop. When looking at the different mini laptops on the market I pretty fast decided that the Acer Aspire One would be the best alternative for me at the moment. Then after the decision to buy a blue Acer Aspire One, the thing was to choose the right model. I was balancing the price and the operating system. I have dreamed for years to buy a laptop with only linux, but when trying the pre-installed Linux Limpus and also newest Ubuntu 8.10 (booting from a pendrive) I had to give up the dream and buy the laptop with XP instead. There are still problems to get the in-built 3G modem working with linux and that in-built 3G was something I really wanted. I have not made the laptop dual boot and as long as there are problems with the 3G in linux, I will just use XP for all the things I need to do with this little laptop. If I need to use linux for some reason I can always boot from the usb stick. I heard there was problems with the wlan part also with Ubuntu 8.10 and Acer Aspire One, so have to look into that at some point maybe also.

GPSed Track "Hki-tku"

2008-11-18T15:59:00.002+02:00

View my new track "Hki-tku" started in Finland, null, Kilo.

GPSed Track "Walk"

2008-11-16T14:00:00.008+02:00

Was out testing live tracking again, this time walking.

I got some extra excercise because of all the electronic
tracking equipment I was carrying with me...
In addition to my mobilephone and gps I also had
my Polar S725X and the wireless footpod connected.
Now I will save my excercise data in a separate program,

but I am sure there are systems available already that
can post live excercise data to a personal blog etc.

View my new track "Walk" started in Finland, Turku.

Ubuntu 8.10 and HSPA pcmcia card

2008-11-07T00:14:00.006+02:00

Inspired with the thought of bying a "MiniLaptop", I decided to try my Option Globertotter HSPA card in the newest Ubuntu Linux distribution. I dowloaded it and burned it on a cd, then restarted my laptop. Then I noticed that this new Ubuntu 8.10 has an "install to usb" option directly under System --> Administration --> Create a USB Startup Disk. I then tried to make a bootable usb stick with newest Ubuntu. I have for years carried a bootable linux usb stick with me, it has kind of been my small private portable computer. It all went well and Ubuntu 8.10 started from the usb without any problems. Wireless Lan connection was working well directly as usually, but then when I tried the HSPA card configuration it was not plug and play. Actually I did not get it to work tonight so I have to try again later. I have been interested in the Acer Aspire ONE ZG5, there are two versions of it, one with linux and one with Windows XP. Only XP comes with built-in 3G...

I am considering to buy a "MiniLaptop"...

2008-11-06T18:20:00.028+02:00

For a few years I have been considering to buy a "MiniLaptop" that I could have with me on my business trips as my private laptop, but the "holdback" so far has been the price and wireless mobility.

About ten years ago, for years, I used the Ericsson pda device MC16. It did not have built- in telephony or modem, so to get a mobile connection I had to connect my mobilephone with infrared to the pda and use the mobilephone as the modem. The infrared was not always working so well, especially in moving vehicles where the pda and the phone kept bounching in different pace. So when Ericsson released the R380 pda, that also had touchscreen (one of the things I feel important on a mobile companion) and Symbian (an alternative to microsoft) and built-in modem and telephony, I changed to the R380 immidiately. I remember that I was actually quite satisfied with the R380. Well, at that time the data transfer speed was not as fast then as it is now, even though also then the "hot numbers" were 14,4 and the "hot two first letters" were HS as today...

For the last few years I have been using different Sony Ericsson touchscreen symbian pda´s like 900, 990 and now I am using the P1i. All of those phones have been working ok. I have been able to access all my emails, contacts and calendars which also are always synchronized over the air interface. With these pda´s I am also able to read some news and run some nice applications like google maps etc. With external gps (connected to the phone with bluetooth) I can use also other "more advanced" navigation programs. As default these pda´s also have had some games included, but those I have usually removed, even before trying...

So now the question arise that what do I actually need a "MiniLaptop" for ?

GPSed Track "Drive 2"

2008-11-04T17:49:00.004+02:00

Just another live try. Not live anymore, but track is below.

View my new track "Drive 2" started in Turku, Finland.

Mobile broadband

2008-11-02T18:53:00.021+02:00

I have been using an Option Globetrotter GT MAX 7,2 Ready Broadband Wireless Data Card with my two different laptop computers for more than a year now and feel it has been working really well. I have used it with three different Windows operating systems, 2000 Pro, XP Pro and Vista business. Recently I upgraded the card to support 7,2 Mbit/s with the SuperFire upgrader program from www.option.com support pages and the upgrade went very smoothly as it should. The only tricky thing was to close the Globetrotter Connect process from the task manager, before that the upgrade did not start and the SuperFire upgrader was just complaining to close all other applications. The firmware is revision 2.5.11Hd and software 93.31.0 after the upgrade. Now I get download speeds of more than 3,6 Mbit/s which feels quite nice "on-the-road", since I still remember when I did mobile downloading on daily basis just over ten years ago...

Some thoughts about blogging

2008-11-02T18:45:00.008+02:00

Just when I started my new blog I found this interesting article,
unfortunately it will not stop me from trying to become a blogger

www.wikihow.com/Dissuade-Yourself-from-Becoming-a-Blogger

2008-11-01T22:09:00.008+02:00

Testing to blog from my SE P1i mobile phone.

Seems that mobile blogging works well,
even though no heading text was added here...

GPSed Track "Drive"

2008-11-01T18:28:00.007+02:00

I tried some live gps logging and it worked ok. I had my laptop with me in the car connected to the internet and I could see how my route was updated live on the internet page. It was actually rather cool to see it work that well. Below is the actual test route.

View my new track "Drive" started in Turku, Finland.

1st text

2008-11-01T18:10:00.000+02:00

This is my first test text in this new rwireless blog...

I hope to test and write here about all kind of wireless stuff that interest myself.