DD-WRT, Tomato, or default Linksys firmware?

Filed Under Gadgets & Hardware, Hacks and Mods | 2008-10-15, 15:26

One of my best “sidewalk scores” since I moved to the Bay Area was a Linksys WRT54G router (v4). This brings up the count of WRT54G routers in the apartment to 3, plus the La Fonera wireless bridge to a friend across the street. How are they being used and what are they running?

Previously I had a WRT54GS (v6) running as our main router/wireless AP. It was running the default Linksys firmware and did a decent job. It’s easy to configure, and it just works once things are all setup. I have had to reboot it a couple times (maybe 3-4?) in the past year, but that’s not that big of a deal. The default firmware is simple, usually easy to understand, but lacking in “fun” features. It also seemed to not really pay much attention to my QoS rules as torrent traffic always chokes our network. It was acceptable, but I wasn’t exceedingly happy or excited with the firmware. Plus it hurts your geek cred to run default firmware when it can be hacked, right?

So, something had to be done about this boring firmware. The sidewalk scored WRT54G just got the Tomato firmware (v1.21) installed on it and replaced the WRT54GS as our main router. I first had to hold down the reset button for 30 seconds to reset things to factory defaults to wipe out the previous owner’s username/password. Then I was able to log into the web interface (default Linksys password is “admin”) and it was beyond easy to upgrade the firmware from the default Linksys firmware to Tomato. You literally browse to the download Tomato firmware and click upgrade. A few minutes later I reloaded the web interface (entered the default password of “admin”) and saw Tomato’s minimalistic admin interface. I ran through and matched all the settings to our existing router and then waited for Heather to take a lunch break to swap them out without any problems. I’ll probably re-flash the old router with DD-WRT or Tomato and drop it back in the office to use on the other end of the ethernet cable I ran back there to have a wired network.

Speaking of the office, there’s also a third WRT54G (v.3) router back there. It’s wired up in the rolling media center, which is comprised of an Ikea rolling shelf thing housing an audio reciever, Xbox, Playstation 3, and 32″ LCD HDTV. Because I keep most of my media on a machine in the living room, but want to play it on the TV, I wanted to be able to stream to either the Xbox or PS3. I used a WRT54G router with it enabled as a wireless bridge using DD-WRT. It utilizes its more sensitive antennas to pick up the weak wireless signal from the living room and then share it with other wireless devices as well as the hardwired Xbox, PS3, and laptop. I set it up once over a year ago, and have not had to touch a single setting on it nor had any problems. It was incredibly easy to setup and it has been rock solid.

So, I know everyone wants to know, what’s the best firmware replacement? Well, ultimately it’s up to you and how you’ll use the router. But here are my thoughts:

Default firmware:
If you’re lazy and just have a normal network setup (cabled modem + wireless router + laptop + wired PC, etc.), and don’t care about tweaking things, then the default firmware is problem fine. If you ever run into a problem, you can call up Linksys tech support and they can help you out.

DD-WRT:
DD-WRT served me very well for several years. However it doesn’t get a lot of development these days. One annoying thing is that it continuously reboots the router when you have to make changes, which can get annoying as you wait each time for it to come back up. It was also extra steps to set up traffic logging so I could quench my stats junkie. It’s a great project, and works incredibly well. I have very few complaints and would probably have kept using this.

Tomato:
However, with my first impressions of Tomato, I’ve found a new firmware to love. Tomato’s interface is incredibly nice and clean:

It’s quick and easy to browse around and change settings. Most settings don’t require restarting as it just restarts the necessary services. It’s on par with DD-WRT, but it has one feature that really sold me on it, bandwidth graphs. Tomato has real-time bandwidth stats where you can watch it update (on a 2sec refresh) your current bandwidth usage based on the network interface (wired/wireless/etc). This alone made me want to install Tomato, and everything else I’ve run into has been a plus. One other nice surprise is that you can mount Samba (i.e. Windows Sharing) file shares in Tomato. So I currently have it backing up the bandwidth stats to a shared folder on another server every hour right now. I’m sure this can be used for all sorts of other fun things I have yet to think of too.

So in the end, unless something terrible rears it’s ugly head, Tomato is now on top in my book due to its interface and stats capabilities.

UPDATE: I noticed shortly after switching to the Tomato based router that streaming .avi videos over a Windows file share was uncommonly jumpy. After some research I went into the Administration->Configuration section and selected “Erase all data in NVRAM memory”. This is recommended if you are switching from a different firmware to Tomato, and will set everything back to defaults. After doing that and reconfiguring, video streaming seemed even better than before!

5 Comments

Kensington’s Portable iPhone Battery Recharger

Filed Under Apple, Gadgets & Hardware | 2008-10-06, 15:56

One of the first lessons I learned when starting to use the iPhone 3G was that the battery life was terrible. It was worse than the Sidekick‘s and many times will not even make it through a day depending on the amount of usage. Now I know there’s all sorts of tricks and tips for extending battery life (turn down the brightness, disable 3G and Wireless, etc.) but they all have an impact on this high-end device that I want to use to its fullest. I needed a better solution to help my iPhone get through a busy day.

With the Sidekick 3 I suffered from a short battery life, so I would carry around a spare Sidekick 3 battery in my bag. Since the iPhone 3G doesn’t have a replaceable battery, this wasn’t an option for me. So the next best thing was to get a portable battery charger to charge the iPhone on the go. After seeing a friend with one, I decided to get the Kensington Battery Pack (Model K33396US). They aren’t paying me to say this, but I must say it is awesome. It comes with four parts to it, a battery pack, 2 cables, and AC adaptor. The battery pack itself is smaller and thinner than the iPhone, and incredibly light. It has a button of the same style as the Macbook batteries that you can press to light up 5 LEDs to see how much charge is left. There are two ports on the battery, a mini-USB and a regular USB. The battery charger came with two cables, a typical mini-USB to regular USB, and a USB to iPhone/iPod dock connector. In order to charge it you connect the AC adaptor to the battery with the typical miniUSB cable. Since I normally carry one of these with me at all times and they’re standard, this means it’s even more useful. You can also connect it to a normal laptop/desktop USB port as well to charge it. Once the battery is charged, you can also flip the USB cable around plugging it into the standard USB port on the battery and then the miniUSB end into another device such as a Sidekick LX. In order to charge the iPhone you use the USB to iPhone adaptor. Again, another standard cable that is already in my bag. Big big thanks to Kensington for not using any proprietary connectors/adaptors/etc in this product!

So how well does it charge? Well I can seem to get a full charge for either my iPhone or my Sidekick LX and still have a few LEDs left of power. I haven’t tried a full charge of my iPod yet, but I imagine it would be similar. The best part of this little device is it’s versatility. Because companies are starting to use standard connections, I can charge a multitude of devices: iPhone 3G, Sidekick LX, and my iPod Video. And I also don’t have to choose which device to charge when on a trip as I can just charge the battery pack and distribute the power as needed across devices. I do recommend getting a small little bag to keep everything together so you don’t lose anything while digging around for something in your bag.

I bought it for $57 from Amazon.com, and had to wait a few weeks for it to be in stock. You might have beeter luck finding it for a good price elsewhere, like searching for “Kensington battery pack” on eBay even. Here’s the official Kensington page on the device. I’ve copied and pasted the specs below:
* Rechargeable battery pack for back-up power for mobile devices
* Enjoy up to 55 hours of extra iPod music play time, up to 14 hours of iPod video play time, up to 5 hours of mobile or smartphone talk time
* Power and recharge your mobile or smartphone, iPod®, MP3 player, PDA and other mobile devices anywhere you go
* Flexible recharging of Power Pack via notebook USB port or included wall adapter with USB charging cable
* Included Mini-USB cable to charge devices like MotoRazr™, MotoKRZR™, Rim® Blackberry™
* LED battery gauge tells how much power is left in your Power Pack
* Also works with Kensington USB Power Tip pack with retractable USB cable

Specifications
* Battery Chemistry: Lithium-Ion Polymer
* Certifications: cULus, CE, FCC
* Input: 5VDC (Mini USB) – 1.00A Max — Output: 5VDC (USB) — 1.50A Max.
* Capacity: 1800mAh, (7Wh)

6 Comments

Using the La Fonera Router from Fon as a Wireless Bridge

Filed Under Gadgets & Hardware, Hacks and Mods | 2008-09-26, 18:43

(If you haven’t hacked DD-WRT onto your Fon router yet, you probably want to read this article: Hacking the La Fonera Fon Router with DD-WRT)

So you’ve got a Fon router with one ethernet port and wireless hardware, what do you do with it? Well you could use it for a number of things thanks to the flexibility of DD-WRT, but I’m going to tell you how to use it as a wireless bridge to connect a device with an ethernet port to your wireless network. This is assuming you’ve already flashed DD-WRT v24 RC7 onto your Fon router.

Plug the Fon router into your laptop/desktop using an ethernet cable. (You’ll probably want to disconnect your machine from any wireless or wired connections while working on this to avoid confusion)
On your computer, set your IP address to manual and set it as something like 192.168.1.166. Anything in the 192.168.1 subdomain will work though.
Open a web browser and connect to the Fonera web interface (http://192.168.1.100 Username: root Password: admin)

Under the Wireless tab, set the Wireless Mode to “Client Bridge”.
Set the Wireless Network Name (SSID) to match the SSID of the router you want to bridge.
Set the Wireless Network Mode to match the router too (probably just leave it at Mixed)

Under Wireless->Wireless Security, setup your security settings like WPA, keys, etc. These should match the router you’re bridging
Then you should check under Status->Wireless and you should see that you are connected to the SSID of the access point you specified.
Go to Setup->Basic Setup and under “WAN Connection Type” set Connection Type to Static IP and manually give your Fon an IP that matches the subnet of your network, i.e. 192.168.1.3.
Set the Gateway and Static DNS 1 to your main router’s ip (mine is 192.168.1.1).
Also change the Network Setup to match these settings.
Change the DHCP Type to “DHCP Forwarder” and the DHCP Server to your main router’s IP address. (This is all of course assuming you’re using DHCP on your router.)

Under Setup->Advanced Routing, change Operating Mode to RIP2 Router

Check under Status->Wireless and you should still be connected to your main router.

Reboot the Fon router (under Administration->Management, at the bottom), unplug and replug the ethernet cable, and reconnect to the web interface, this time using http://192.168.1.3 (or whatever IP you set the Fon router to be). Be patient as the Fon may take awhile to reboot.

Test your internet connection and connection to other local machines on your network, making sure you’re using the ethernet connection to the Fon router. If everything went well, you should be all set!

You should now be able to use the tiny Fon router to hook up one device via ethernet. This could be a Playstation 3, or an Xbox/Xbox 360, or maybe a single computer in a different room that you couldn’t run CAT5 cable to. It’s up to you!

Information via

5 Comments

Hacking the La Fonera Fon Router with DD-WRT

Filed Under Gadgets & Hardware, Hacks and Mods | 2008-09-24, 21:47

I live across the street from a friend and we thought it would be handy to be able to connect to each other’s machines in order to transfer files back and forth. Rather than just connect to each other’s networks as needed, we figured it’d be easier just to setup a third “across-the-street” network. This means that we both need endpoints to connect to the other. For me, I chose to use an old Fon “La Fonera” router that I had stuffed away in a box months ago. Unfortunately the firmware that ships with the Fon router doesn’t have support to do anything like this. Luckily there are free, open-source firmwares out there like DD-WRT that are robust enough to meet our needs. The first major step was to actually get DD-WRT on this router. Here’s how I did it and how you can too:

You’re first going to need some tools:
- An ethernet cable and a laptop/desktop to use. I also recommend having a second machine that you can use just for an internet connection in case you run into trouble.
- Telnet and SSH clients (putty on windows, built-in on OS X)
- A TFTP server setup with the latest release of DD-WRT:
— For Windows, you can use Simple TFTP server
— For OS X, you can use the built-in TFTP server with the following commands:

sudo mkdir /private/tftpboot
sudo /sbin/service tftp start

To test your TFTP connection put a file in /private/tftpboot and try the following:

tftp localhost
get filename

If TFTP is working, great, go grab the v24 RC7 version of the linux.bin file for DD-WRT here and drop it into /private/tftpboot since we’ll need this later. Just in case, I’ve mirrored a copy of linux.bin.

Ok great, your initial things are setup and ready. The first real step is to get SSH enabled, and this proved to be the most challenging as I tried to piece together information from various sites on various methods. Luckily it should be easy for you. How to go about this is different depending on the firmware you have on your Fon router. I had 0.7.1 r2 so I couldn’t use the html form injection method and had to use what is called the Kolofonium hack. Basically it means you set the Fon router to use manual network settings and set the DNS server to 88.198.165.155. Then plug the router in and it will attempt to connect to a Fon server to update. The new DNS server you’ve specified is special though, and will redirect this request to a different server, which will provide different firmware that will then have SSH enabled on the device. This should work for most devices. Once this is done, you’ll need to SSH into the device (ssh 192.168.1.1 with username of “root” and password of “admin”) and enable it permanently by executing the following:

mv /etc/init.d/dropbear /etc/init.d/S50dropbear

Great, SSH is now enabled permanently. Next up, flashing the firmware. Connect via SSH to the LaFonera, and execute the following commands:

cd /tmp
wget http://fonera.info/camicia/openwrt-ar531x-2.4-vmlinux-CAMICIA.lzma
mtd -e vmlinux.bin.l7 write openwrt-ar531x-2.4-vmlinux-CAMICIA.lzma vmlinux.bin.l7
reboot

After a few seconds to allow the Fon to reboot, reconnect over SSH and execute the following:

cd /tmp
wget http://fonera.info/camicia/out.hex
mtd -e “RedBoot config” write out.hex “RedBoot config”
reboot

At this point the Fon router will not be able to boot fully, but don’t worry. We’ll be connecting to it via Telnet. You’ll want to manually configure your machine’s network to be on the 192.168.1.* subnet, I used 192.168.1.166 as the IP for my laptop. Then plug the Fon router in via ethernet and connect via telnet on port 9000, aka “telnet 192.168.1.254 9000″. Once you connect, you may have to hit enter, but then you should see a “RedBoot>” prompt.

Now is the time to use that TFTP server you setup earlier. At the RedBoot> prompt on the Fon router, execute the following:

ip_address -l 192.168.1.254/24 -h 192.168.1.166

If you didn’t setup your computer to 192.168.1.166, replace that with whatever IP address you did use.

Now execute the following:

fis init
load-r -b 0×80041000 linux.bin
fis create linux

The last step (fis create linux) may take awhile. Go make a turkey pot pie or something. Mine took about 20 minutes. When that is done, don’t reboot yet, we still need to set a few things for the Fonera to boot correctly. At the RedBoot> prompt, type “fconfig” and hit enter. Then hit enter (or type the following) as you go through the boot script setup:

Run script at boot: true
Boot script:
.. fis load -l vmlinux.bin.l7
.. exec
Enter script, terminate with empty line
>> fis load -l linux
>> exec
>>
Boot script timeout (1000ms resolution): 10
Use BOOTP for network configuration: false
Gateway IP address:
Local IP address: 192.168.1.254
Local IP address mask: 255.255.255.0
Default server IP address:
Console baud rate: 9600
GDB connection port: 9000
Force console for special debug messages: false
Network debug at boot time: false
Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration – continue (y/n)? y
… Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .
… Program from 0x80ff0000-0×81000000 at 0xa87e0000: .
RedBoot>reset

Great, now your Fon router should be rebooting. Unplug the ethernet and connect to the wireless AP named “dd-wrt” (login is root/admin if it asks). You should be seeing the DD-WRT control panel in your browser and you are now connected to your Fon router running DD-WRT! Congrats!

Next time, I’ll post how to get your Fon router to act as a wireless bridge to extend your wireless coverage to another device that has an ethernet port, like an XBox or Playstation 3.

A lot of this info came from various sources. I have rewritten and reposted it here in the spirit of propagating the information. In my research I came across some sites and files that were necessary (for old methods) that were no longer available. I didn’t want anyone else to run into this problem. The information above is from my own experience and the combination of bits and pieces from the sites below. Note however that some of these sites may have outdated information, but may be useful if you have older firmware or something:

The Kolofonium Hack (information on how the old and new methods of enabling SSH on the Fonera work. Interesting if you want to know what vulnerabilities are being used to hack this router)
DD-WRT Wiki page on hacking the La Fonera
Hacking the La Fonera (the old method of enabling SSH on old versions of the Fon firmware)

3 Comments

The Saga of a Carputer

Filed Under Gadgets & Hardware, Geek | 2008-08-11, 19:34

As technology advances, soon you find that your homegrown solutions are readily available in prepackaged purchasable form. Almost 10 years ago I started building carputers. They were exactly as their name sounds, a computer in a car. Back then it was absurd to think of mp3s in a car as many people didn’t even know what mp3s were. The only real in-dash product on the market back then was the Empeg Car, a linux based unit that payed mp3s off of a laptop harddrive to the tune of $1,000+. Rather than save up the cash for one of these units I decided to build my own based on what I had laying around. My carputer started as an old Packard Bell 66mhz machine that used DOS and a command line mp3 player to supply my car with tunes. It had no display and instead I had a list of songs in my library, and typed them in with memorized keyboard commands. It wasn’t fancy, but the fact that I could take me couple of gigs of music on the road with me was exciting.

Over the years, I watched as the mp3 + car community grew. MP3Car.com exploded and soon was a wealth of knowledge as others around the world had similar ideas. My carputer also grew and morphed as I upgraded things, still refusing to spend a ton of cash on it, and instead using what I could find laying around. Laptops, desktops, inverters, multiple cables, power inverters, and more random equipment passed through my car. At one point I had an old eMachine 400mhz machine and an 10″ IBM PS/1 monitor that I think may have just been able to support 640×480. When I turned on my car, the chorus of beeps from inverters, monitors, and computers was kind of ridiculous and the number of fuses I went through must have had the local auto shops wondering.

Of course all this hardware was sitting in plain view in my Honda CR-V along with a rather large bandpass box, and as to be expected my car was eventually broken into and someone made off with my equipment. Luckily the bandpass box, being too heavy to carry more than 15 feet was found at the end of the parking lot, intact. And with the help of insurance, I was able to upgrade my machine to the last revision.

This final revision was comprised of the following parts:

Lilliput 7″ touchscreen

EPIA M-10000

An 80GB harddrive containing music, maps, and software

A Buffalo wireless card with external attenna (for loading new stuff on the computer without running a cat5 cable out to the parking lot)

A simple Deluo GPS receiver with a strong magnet so I could stick it on the roof when I needed a better signal

I went through various software solutions, ranging from stripped down Windows 98 + Winamp, to full-featured front-ends like MediaEngine and Frodoplayer. I always had a couple different versions of mapping software available, whether it was Destinator (nicely integrated into most front-ends) or Delorme Street Atlas.

When the motherboard came, I was so excited to get to work on this project, that I just used the box it came in as a case and had to repeatedly short the pins with a screwdriver in order to boot it because I hadn’t ordered an On switch. Eventually I realized a CD-ROM would be handy, so I upgraded from the EPIA box to the Kikwear shoebox. Four and a half years later and it’s the same shoebox (with some extra electrical tape to hold it together) that I’m retiring.

Shorting the Carputer Motherboard to boot it

In San Francisco, it’s highly unintelligent to keep anything of value in your car. Cars are broken into so regularly that you see signs inside windows stating there’s nothing of value. After making the long roadtrip moving here from Chicago and utilizing the carputer one last time, I pulled it out so that it wouldn’t be temptation to anyone walking down the sidewalk. Now I have phones that can stream internet radio, more handheld GPS devices that I can count, and should I ever want a full carputer back in my car, multiple options on the market.

Looking back though, it was less about having mp3s and maps in the car, and more about a project that was rewarding. Putting together a carputer was definitely not without it’s challenges and pitfalls. I remember embarrassingly having to pull over on the highway, somewhere between Ohio and North Carolina, to “reboot” my car because Windows had blue screened at 80mph. Shortly afterward, I wired a switch in the dash to power-cycle the machine so I didn’t have to do that again. The hours of frustration trying to reduce engine noise in the audio lines, struggling with horrible Lilliput drivers that occasionally allowed the touchscreen to work (if you were lucky it was calibrated right too), and of course always having to wait for my car to shutdown before I turned it off.

On the flip side, there was all the times that I got to show it off to people who found it fascinating, the hours and hours on the road that I never had to flip through a CD book to find the next hour of music, never being lost, watching TV on my lunch breaks at work, and of course all the chicks that I got. Well maybe not so much the last one. It was a great project and I kind of miss not having it to work on. Luckily I have other current and future projects to satiate these geek desires and occupy my time.

Unfortunately I can’t find a good pic of the actual carputer _in_ my car, other than this one from the roadtrip from Chicago to San Francisco and a couple taken by my Sidekick:

3 Comments

Debating the QNAP TS-209 II vs building a PC

Filed Under Gadgets & Hardware, Geek | 2008-06-04, 00:42

So I’m at a point where I feel like I need a good solid server in my apartment again. Something that I can use for the following:
- Media storage for serving to PS3/xbox
- Backup storage for photos, files, and whatnot
- Version control system for website development
- ssh server for tunneling back through my network connection
- Download machine for large files and torrents
- General Windows machine for video conversions and and other CPU/harddrive demanding tasks

I have basically two options to go with in my eyes: Build a solution or buy a prebuilt one.

Build a solution:
Pros:
- Completely customizable
- Upgradeable
- Limited only in price
- Can reuse existing IDE drives
- My choice of operating system (dual boot?)
Cons:
- Significant time investment
- If it breaks I have to troubleshoot
- Possibly overkill for what I need
- It’s been awhile (5 years?) since I built a machine

Buy a solution:
Pros:
- No building and only minor configuration needed
- Technical support available
- Minimal time investment
- Cheaper
Cons:
- Limited in hardware
- Not customizable
- Probably stuck with a custom linux distro

As far as building a solution, I quickly spec’d out this setup.
- It has both IDE and SATA ports so I can use old harddrives and new ones
- It’s a pretty decent system as far as CPU is concerned
- It will be large and probably loud
- It will consume a significant amount of power

And for buying, I was thinking of going with the QNAP TS 209 II (feature lists)
- It’s preconfigured with just about everything I need (except version control) and has ipkg to install whatever else I need
- It’s small, quiet, and consumes very little power
- It’s a wimpy machine under the hood
- It seems to do everything I think I’d need and then some, and I don’t have to set everything up manually

For those not following along, my life right now is kind of busy as I juggle a job, a web business, a relationship, and a fire arts group. At this point I’m more willing to spend money than time configuring something, so the QNAP is looking enticing. But the thought of paying a few hundred more, putting in a bunch of hours, and having a much more powerful machine is tempting.

Thoughts/opinions/criticisms? Any other suggestions?

4 Comments

Turn off border popup on OLPC laptop

Filed Under Gadgets & Hardware | 2008-03-24, 23:00

One of the minor, yet incredibly annoying features about Sugar, the operating system on the XO laptop, is that there is this thick border that pops up to allow you to navigate. It seems to be really sensitive and loves to pop up when I try to go access the menus in a program that’s running. I put up with it for a long time, but finally stumbled across the information to turn off that automatic popup based on mouse location.

Open up Terminal and enter these commands:

su
cd /usr/share/sugar/shell/view/frame
nano -w eventarea.py

Now, find line 56 and 57 and comment them out. i.e. change

invisible.connect(‘enter-notify-event’, self._enter_notify_cb)
invisible.connect(‘leave-notify-event’, self._leave_notify_cb)

#invisible.connect(‘enter-notify-event’, self._enter_notify_cb)
#invisible.connect(‘leave-notify-event’, self._leave_notify_cb)

Either reboot your laptop, or exit out of everything and hit Ctrl+Alt+Erase to restart the GUI. Now you can just use the box key in the top right corner of the keyboard to access the border navigation!

4 Comments

Griffin Evolve Wireless Speakers Review and Unboxing

Filed Under Gadgets & Hardware, Geek | 2008-03-14, 12:25

A few weeks ago a set of Griffin Evolve wireless speakers arrived. I had been needing to get a decent solution for listening to music when hanging around the house and my laptop speakers weren’t cutting it. I wanted something that would work with my iPod since that’s where my music lived and something that I could use anywhere in the house. The Evolve wireless speakers seemed like just the solution.

What are my thoughts on the speakers? I love them. Being able to come home and pull the iPod out of my pocket and plug it directly into a set of speakers and continue listening to the same song is a nice convenience. In addition to that I can grab one of the speakers and take it into any room I want. They’re small, light, and the sound quality is pretty good. I was mostly concerned that the sound quality would be crap, akin to my experiences with FM transmitters, but I am pleasantly surprised and have no complaints about sound quality. They don’t have a whole lot in the realm of bass, but for their use (background music) they’re fine and I’m sure my neighbors are appreciative. They do get really loud though. For the audiophiles in the crowd that spend hundreds of dollars on cables, these probably aren’t the right solution. But if you’re a casual listener (especially if you’re still using those awful iPod earbuds) that just wants to have some nice background music in the house with the convenience of playing from your iPod, I highly recommend these. The selling points for me:

They accept my 80gb video iPod in its protective case without needing an adaptor
I don’t have to worry about screwing up my last.fm stats since all my music plays from my iPod
They’re black and look nice
Charging them is simple and easy, just set them on the base
Range extends to anywhere within 150ft
Additional inputs on the back so I can use any audio source
Remote control is wireless and works anywhere the speakers work
iPod charges while docked
Switch on the base that changes from Stereo to Mono in case you want to have only one speaker in a room

My only improvements/complaints:

No way to control song playback other than using preconfigured playlists and Next/Back
It would be awesome to have a small LCD on the remote to view/control the iPod
It would be nice to have a 5.1 version for use with my media center too
A bit pricey
Not a whole lot of bass
While they aren’t nearly as bad as my PS3, they do gather some dust well
I worry that the dock might snap off because I’m not using an adaptor since my protective case doesn’t fit in with the adaptor

All in all, I highly recommend them if you feel like you need a wireless solution for casual music listening. I may even buy another pair of speakers to add to the set in the future. You can find pretty low prices from different sellers on Amazon. I went with ANTOnline who shipped incredibly fast. Below you’ll find pictures of the unboxing, aka geek-porn:

8 Comments

I love the Garmin eTrex Vista HCx and Geotagging

Filed Under Gadgets & Hardware, Geek, Photography | 2008-01-06, 03:19

I love GPS receivers. There’s something great about knowing exactly where you are, plus being able to track where you’ve been. They come in handy while hiking, walking around a city, or driving. And I have a very long history with these things. I used to have a carputer that combined a GPS receiver with software long before it was standard on cars. My carputer consisted of a shoebox+miniITX+LCD imported from Hong Kong. I’ve used a handful of GPS receivers that are meant to interface with laptops, but up until recently, have only owned one handheld receiver, a Garmin eTrex Legend (unless you count the Boost Mobile i415 or the Helio Ocean). I loved that little device, it got me into geocaching and was primarily bought for that purpose. I used to also enjoy taking it on plane flights and tracking our flight across the country. It also rode shotgun with two other GPSrs during my cross-country move from Chicago to San Francisco. But I always felt like it was lacking. With only 8mb of internal memory, I could barely load enough maps for trips. I couldn’t even squeeze the entire Bay Area on it. And the monochrome screen? So 2002. I’ve been meaning to upgrade for quite awhile, and prompted by a New Year’s trip to Joshua Tree, I finally caved during a last minute trip to REI.

I picked up a Garmin eTrex Vista HCx unit for $299.99 (you can get it cheaper, but I love REI’s return policy). It’s almost the same size as the old Legend, just a little shorter and fatter. The screen on it is gorgeous though. It’s amazing how much easier it is to read maps with colors. The best part about it though is the sensitivity of the receiver. With the old Legend, I had gotten accustomed to having to leave it on the dashboard in the car or carrying it in my hand while walking. It consistently complained about needing a clear view of the sky in order to lock onto satellites. The new Vista HCx scoffs at these needs. It was able to pick up satellites while stashed in the seat back pocket in the middle of my car! Amazingly it was also able to pick up a signal while inside! So armed with my new toy, we headed out to Joshua Tree. I basically left it on for the entire drive and most of the time we were out in the desert and it did a spectacular job of hardly ever losing a signal. It came in handy when trying to find our campsite that was a little over a mile from our cars and hidden amongst desert foliage that all looks the same. It also allowed me to keep tracks on where we went, whether it was climbing a mountain, scrambling over boulders, or even just wandering away from camp to *ahem* dig a hole.

This tracking all came in handy when I got back home and wanted to geotag the photos I had taken out there. I loaded up EasyGPS to download a .gpx file containing the tracks and then used gpicsync (a Google Code project) to stamp the GPS information into the EXIF header of the actual image files. From there I uploaded the photos to Flickr, which automatically interpreted the GPS coordinates and placed my photos on the map. The other cool thing about gpicsync is that it will create a Google Earth file that will let you load up Google Earth and fly around the world, seeing where your photos were taken. Quite awesome when you’ve been taking photos in the mountains and you can actually see which ridge you were on in 3-D.

So I highly recommend the Garmin eTrex Vista HCx. And no, they aren’t paying me to say that. :) Although, if you do want to pick one up, use this link: Garmin eTrex Vista HCx and Amazon will give me a few bucks. They’ve actually got a damn good price for it there.

And yes, it comes in handy when you need to mark a waypoint to point out where you found your girlfriend’s toothpaste when you’re practicing “Leave No Trace” camping. ;)

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Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card

Filed Under Gadgets & Hardware, News, Photography | 2007-11-20, 20:08

Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card
Originally uploaded by edrabbit.

Finally got a minute to setup my Eye-Fi card. I must say I’m very happy with the finished product so far. I was very very glad to have both the options to upload directly to Flickr as well as to upload to a folder on a local machine. I was stuck with just Flickr support in the past and didn’t like how every single blurry photo got uploaded, not allowing me to pick and choose. Now with it uploading to my laptop via wireless, I can sort through them (organized by date even!) and pick which ones warrant the Flickr stream. All in all definitely worth $99 in my opinion.

This could definitely change the way photos are done. Imagine being at a protest or gathering. You snap some pictures of some sensitive stuff, the authorities confiscate your camera and destroy it. What they don’t realize is that all the pictures were wirelessly synced to your laptop in the car that has a wireless AP running. I can also imagine this being convenient to photographers, who can upload photos while they’re doing a shoot, so they can be reviewed instantaneously. I’m also trying to think of other projects where this could be fun. Mella and I have talked about putting together some portable cameras that this would be fun to work with.

So far there are only two things I wish the card could do. Have another 2 gb of space to match my 4gb (although I may be able to survive with space for 780+ photos/17minutes of video), and have a setting where I could tell it to connect to open networks that don’t require a password automatically. Oh, and add a third to that… support for RAW images would be nice!