Yeah, BGA is a pain in the hindside to work with on the hobby level. I've got a surface-mount soldering station but it's still a pain (one of the Hakko units).
Thanks for the parts pointer! *digs through Digikey*
Yeah... I'd meant to mirror the images server to a high-bandwidth location but hadn't gotten around to it yet. My bad. The actual project pages are on a good provider with lots of bandwidth to spare. My bad...
What I didn't put in the project web pages before it got/.'d: I'm making a case with integrated battery that mounts on the back of my R1150GS motorcycle. If I get the size trimmed a bit it should fit without taking up any of the bike's luggage space. Now to figure out how to make a lean-angle sensor to record that along with the speed/position data...:)
This is what folks like JunXion already do. It's really simple. Just remove the WiFi board, add a (surprisingly cheap) directional yagi antenna, a 3w 800/1900 booster and point at the nearest tower. Boom. House-data over ethernet. The device has two ethernet ports already built in. I use one for wired clients and the other as an alternate uplink if I don't use the EVDO card.
Funny thing is that I'm exactly the same way. I've done dozens of little projects, sometimes right through completion, and by the time I put up some web page about it I find out it was last month's geek press.
I know of about 5 others (two in my area) who are making similar devices... so I'm still surprised I was the first one to get pages about such a project on/..
How far have you gotten on yours, if you're working on the same kind of project? What else have you made yours do?
This can be adapted to about any uplink you want, either via PCMCIA, mini-pci, serial or ethernet. Making it run off of a Direcway satellite or similar is just a matter of purchasing the uplink equipment, no worries.
EVDO's coverage isn't great. The slower version (1xRTT) is about the same as Verizon's voice service. Not *everywhere* but it's been in far more places than I thought it'd be. With a 3w booster and a good antenna (a trick the long-term RV crowd has known about for years for voice use) you can get data 10-30 miles from the nearest tower, geography permitting.
The moment an affordable in-motion-antenna satellite system is available you better believe I'm modding the stompbox to do it.:)
In 1xRTT-land I got 70up/30dn most of the time. About 1/4 of the time I'd get 110up/50dn. At the worst (only a few times, and usually when the evening commute hours put a lot of traffic near where I was parked) I'd get about 50/10. Compared to a 56k modem (about 26/20 on the same tool when I tried it), this isn't bad.
I've had 4 computers using it at the same time. While it will start to gronk on images with multiple access it's truly not that bad. And no, we're not using any kind of proxy, cache or compressor.
I've yet to get this system out under EVDO coverage yet, save for the single test that got me 600dn (found one local tower where it was activated. Didn't last. Hrmf). When EVDO hits my area (or I take a trip into an EVDO area) I'll put up better metrics.
Compared to GPRS (my old wireless link) it's much nicer.
The tradeoffs between the service can be argued endlessly. What it comes down to in the end is primarily "What service has music that I like?"
While there are many stations in common between the systems, if you study the channel guides you will find important differences. If you want NPR, for instance, you need to pick Sirius. If you want the LA/NY superstations, you need XM. Dig through the listings and you'll find more examples that may apply to your own listening tastes. Both companies have websites that let you sample recent loops of each channel's music. Go Listen.
The second biggest influence is in the installation. What will work with your desired audio system(s), in what situations? Do you want something that swaps between multiple vehicles and the house (like the Sony unit for XM), an FM modulator, an Aux-In external, or an integrated unit? Depending on the vehicles you drive and your desire for (or against) home use, one service may have an advantage over the other.
For me? I went XM because it was the only thing out at the time. I bought the Pioneer FM-modulated box and installed it in my GL1800 motorcycle. It integrates beautifully with the built in audio system on the bike, replacing the very-crappy factory CD player. I find myself listening to only a handful of the channels: BPM, 80's, Cinemagic, Audio Visions, and the occasional newsfeed. It's so nice not to have to play station-hunt every hundred miles or so, and even the iPod-full-of-tunes can get redundant on a long trip.
Now that Sirius is out, I am re-evaluating the channel line-ups. Satellite radio is damnably addictive, so I plan to put a reciever in the van, the other bike, and the house. As a result I'll probably end up with the Sony 'socketed' solution, so I can just buy the one and swap it as needed between the three places. Said Sony unit is XM only, though -- so I'm keeping my eyes out for a Sirius 'transportable' unit as a possible alternative.
For any who're curious to see: I pulled out the binocs, a white sheet of paper and the camera to snap off a few frames of the eclipse as seen from the southern part of San Jose, CA.
I've used the 9000 for a few years. It was a great remote terminal (telnet/ssh) for a lot of sysadmin tasks; it saved me more than once while working at various startups around the south SF bay area. When the 8890 came out, I took to carrying that instead due to it's immensely small size and good IrDA-modem capabilities (just set it beside the laptop and rock on)... as I finally had a tiny Sony VAIO laptop I could keep with me.
The VAIO is long gone, replaced by a meaty Dell 8200. The 9290 finally made it here after 8 months of waiting. The battery life is 8-10x that of the 9000 communicator, the screen is actually useable, the MMC additional memory comes in very handy, and the keyboard is no worse than before. It's a lot faster than the 9000 too.
Things Palmies will hate:
1. No touchscreen
2. Thumboarding-only
3. Most of the good software is from the UK market, and overall there's a lot less of it
It drives my ex-roomie (the Visor freak) nuts, but my friends who are WinCE users took to it pretty quickly. We're playing with the SDK now, trying to get some of our more favored clients to work on the device.
#1 "Geek Factor" the phone has: The ability to play.WAV (or with extra software,.MP3) files for ringtones, coupled with the possibility of assigning a ring-tone to every contact entry in the phone, memory permitting. Having one's phone ring like a Daft Punk song or a friend's call announced by a good Pulp Fiction quote is just _way_ too much fun.
NOTE: For you California types, poor ol' behind-the-times Cingular has no clue this phone exists, and if you tell them you're using it on their network they tend to freak at you. It takes some serious arguing to get the SIM set up right (for 3 numbers, data/fax/voice) but they will eventually do it... and none of their tech group knows how to configure the WAP browser to work with their network. Their half-assed "my wireless web" product just doesn't cope well. Within a month or two they will hopefully come up to speed on it. I had the advantage of having gone through the 3-number setup for the older 9000, so I got off pretty easy. Once configured properly, it'll forward data calls to an attached laptop or receive faxes in the background, no user intervention required.
For those who asked earlier... yes, you can flip it open and keep working while you talk. You have your choice of speakerphone or ear-piece (depending on how public you want your convo to be). While the phone will intially default to a display showing the calling parties (up to 5 can be in a conference call at once, depending on your network), you can swap to whatever app you wish, for taking notes or reading from a spreadsheet, etc. The 'sound recorder' app will also operate during a call, and will capture both sides of the phone conversation very nicely.
It's not the 'uber PDA'. It's pretty big for a phone. As a combo-device, however, it does very well. The apps integrate with the GSM functions nicely. All my basic PDA needs are met: note taking, contact management, SMS management, faxing, email and simple web browsing. All the phone needs are there too, with the same features as most any Nokia phone, with nice GUI add-ons if you desire... with a battery lifespan that'll compete with any modern phone. These basic needs are quite well met by a device that still fits on the hip and only has to be charged at the end of the work-week, letting me leave the bulky laptop on the desk most of the time. If I really need to do more, I'll be sure to pack up the laptop and bring it along -- and even then, I can use the 9290 as a GSM-modem.
At the risk of sounding like some kinda company advert man, I'll just point people towards Mobile Planet. No, I don't work for them; I've just bought many fine wireless toys there.
One of the biggest debates about this product is the use of FRS/GMRS to transmit data, when the FCC rules for these frequencies is pretty firm on their use for voice only.
One website to refer to on these matters is the Popular Wireless Magazine BBS forums (a UBBS system). The Rino product has come under discussion a few times, including Garmin's petitioning of the FCC to violate the 'voice only communications' rule:
Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, D.C. 20554
In the Matter of
GARMIN INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Request for Waiver of Family Radio Service Rule Sections 95.193(a) and 95.631(d) to Authorize Manufacture, Sale and Use of GPS Transmission Enhanced FRS Units
Request for Waiver of Sections 95.193(a), 95.193(b), and 95.631(d) of the Commission's Rules Governing Permissible Communications in the Family Radio Service ----
As a licensed GMRS user, I do worry what devices like this can do to the spectrum when they get popular. If it's implemented right, though, they'll be an incredibly useful tool.
This player is extremely popular with the Gold Wing motorcycling crowd (which I'm one of); many folks on the GL1800 list own them. Two observations come from motorcycle use:
For one, they are amazingly shock-resistant, even with the Microdrive. Be sure to get a 1G microdrive, and not a 340; the 340 pulls more power and is much less shock proof. Switching up to a 1G microdrive made all the difference; the player gets a good bouncing around in the fairing pocket, but no skips.
For two, the shuffle algorithm on this player needs help. The controls are a bit hard to operate with motorcycle gloves on, so most 'wingers just leave themselves to the mercy of the Shuffle setting. This thing likes to pick about 40% of the songs on the disk and cycle through them a few times before grabbing another 'chunk'. I'd much prefer the entire catalog be shuffled once (at the time Shuffle is selected) and then played through like a list that can be stopped and restarted. Only doing another 'shuffle' operation would change the order. Many MP3 players have this problem.
Other than those two comments, I dearly love this device. I got one w/o any CF cards for $79(!!), and threw away the headphones like everybody else. I share the Microdrives between the MP3 player and my Canon D30 digital SLR camera, and there are zero issues. It's fun being able to jam to great tunes on a ride, stop, swap to the D30 and take a few photos at a pretty vista, then put the microdrive back in the MP3 player and keep listenin'.
I take it you can't do email submission because your domain wasn't registered back when email forms were the norm through NetSol. My old domains I still can (or at least did, last renewal last year), but all the new ones I have to use their web tools.
Just call them and explain the situation. The hold times aren't terrible, and they have a number of verification methods where they can verify you and reset your password or just make the change. I've had to do this a number of times over the last five years for various employers with messed up authentication on their domains (usually an admin with the passwords leaving and refusing to tell it to them), and they've always gotten the changes made quite quickly.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, BGA is a pain in the hindside to work with on the hobby level. I've got a surface-mount soldering station but it's still a pain (one of the Hakko units).
Thanks for the parts pointer! *digs through Digikey*
I moved the pictures over to the high-bandwidth site. They should be much better behaved now. :)
Yeah... I'd meant to mirror the images server to a high-bandwidth location but hadn't gotten around to it yet. My bad. The actual project pages are on a good provider with lots of bandwidth to spare. My bad...
*starts sloooooowly copying images over*
What I didn't put in the project web pages before it got /.'d: I'm making a case with integrated battery that mounts on the back of my R1150GS motorcycle. If I get the size trimmed a bit it should fit without taking up any of the bike's luggage space. Now to figure out how to make a lean-angle sensor to record that along with the speed/position data... :)
This is what folks like JunXion already do. It's really simple. Just remove the WiFi board, add a (surprisingly cheap) directional yagi antenna, a 3w 800/1900 booster and point at the nearest tower. Boom. House-data over ethernet. The device has two ethernet ports already built in. I use one for wired clients and the other as an alternate uplink if I don't use the EVDO card.
Funny thing is that I'm exactly the same way. I've done dozens of little projects, sometimes right through completion, and by the time I put up some web page about it I find out it was last month's geek press.
/. .
I know of about 5 others (two in my area) who are making similar devices... so I'm still surprised I was the first one to get pages about such a project on
How far have you gotten on yours, if you're working on the same kind of project? What else have you made yours do?
This can be adapted to about any uplink you want, either via PCMCIA, mini-pci, serial or ethernet. Making it run off of a Direcway satellite or similar is just a matter of purchasing the uplink equipment, no worries.
:)
EVDO's coverage isn't great. The slower version (1xRTT) is about the same as Verizon's voice service. Not *everywhere* but it's been in far more places than I thought it'd be. With a 3w booster and a good antenna (a trick the long-term RV crowd has known about for years for voice use) you can get data 10-30 miles from the nearest tower, geography permitting.
The moment an affordable in-motion-antenna satellite system is available you better believe I'm modding the stompbox to do it.
For speed testing I used Broadband Reports's site.
In 1xRTT-land I got 70up/30dn most of the time. About 1/4 of the time I'd get 110up/50dn. At the worst (only a few times, and usually when the evening commute hours put a lot of traffic near where I was parked) I'd get about 50/10. Compared to a 56k modem (about 26/20 on the same tool when I tried it), this isn't bad.
I've had 4 computers using it at the same time. While it will start to gronk on images with multiple access it's truly not that bad. And no, we're not using any kind of proxy, cache or compressor.
I've yet to get this system out under EVDO coverage yet, save for the single test that got me 600dn (found one local tower where it was activated. Didn't last. Hrmf). When EVDO hits my area (or I take a trip into an EVDO area) I'll put up better metrics.
Compared to GPRS (my old wireless link) it's much nicer.
Yup. :) That's what I get for submitting a /. story in a rush...
At least I got it right on the project pages!
The tradeoffs between the service can be argued endlessly. What it comes down to in the end is primarily "What service has music that I like?"
While there are many stations in common between the systems, if you study the channel guides you will find important differences. If you want NPR, for instance, you need to pick Sirius. If you want the LA/NY superstations, you need XM. Dig through the listings and you'll find more examples that may apply to your own listening tastes. Both companies have websites that let you sample recent loops of each channel's music. Go Listen.
The second biggest influence is in the installation. What will work with your desired audio system(s), in what situations? Do you want something that swaps between multiple vehicles and the house (like the Sony unit for XM), an FM modulator, an Aux-In external, or an integrated unit? Depending on the vehicles you drive and your desire for (or against) home use, one service may have an advantage over the other.
For me? I went XM because it was the only thing out at the time. I bought the Pioneer FM-modulated box and installed it in my GL1800 motorcycle. It integrates beautifully with the built in audio system on the bike, replacing the very-crappy factory CD player. I find myself listening to only a handful of the channels: BPM, 80's, Cinemagic, Audio Visions, and the occasional newsfeed. It's so nice not to have to play station-hunt every hundred miles or so, and even the iPod-full-of-tunes can get redundant on a long trip.
Now that Sirius is out, I am re-evaluating the channel line-ups. Satellite radio is damnably addictive, so I plan to put a reciever in the van, the other bike, and the house. As a result I'll probably end up with the Sony 'socketed' solution, so I can just buy the one and swap it as needed between the three places. Said Sony unit is XM only, though -- so I'm keeping my eyes out for a Sirius 'transportable' unit as a possible alternative.
For any who're curious to see: I pulled out the binocs, a white sheet of paper and the camera to snap off a few frames of the eclipse as seen from the southern part of San Jose, CA.
The pictures can be found here.
I've used the 9000 for a few years. It was a great remote terminal (telnet/ssh) for a lot of sysadmin tasks; it saved me more than once while working at various startups around the south SF bay area. When the 8890 came out, I took to carrying that instead due to it's immensely small size and good IrDA-modem capabilities (just set it beside the laptop and rock on)... as I finally had a tiny Sony VAIO laptop I could keep with me.
.WAV (or with extra software, .MP3) files for ringtones, coupled with the possibility of assigning a ring-tone to every contact entry in the phone, memory permitting. Having one's phone ring like a Daft Punk song or a friend's call announced by a good Pulp Fiction quote is just _way_ too much fun.
The VAIO is long gone, replaced by a meaty Dell 8200. The 9290 finally made it here after 8 months of waiting. The battery life is 8-10x that of the 9000 communicator, the screen is actually useable, the MMC additional memory comes in very handy, and the keyboard is no worse than before. It's a lot faster than the 9000 too.
Things Palmies will hate:
1. No touchscreen
2. Thumboarding-only
3. Most of the good software is from the UK market, and overall there's a lot less of it
It drives my ex-roomie (the Visor freak) nuts, but my friends who are WinCE users took to it pretty quickly. We're playing with the SDK now, trying to get some of our more favored clients to work on the device.
#1 "Geek Factor" the phone has: The ability to play
NOTE: For you California types, poor ol' behind-the-times Cingular has no clue this phone exists, and if you tell them you're using it on their network they tend to freak at you. It takes some serious arguing to get the SIM set up right (for 3 numbers, data/fax/voice) but they will eventually do it... and none of their tech group knows how to configure the WAP browser to work with their network. Their half-assed "my wireless web" product just doesn't cope well. Within a month or two they will hopefully come up to speed on it. I had the advantage of having gone through the 3-number setup for the older 9000, so I got off pretty easy. Once configured properly, it'll forward data calls to an attached laptop or receive faxes in the background, no user intervention required.
For those who asked earlier... yes, you can flip it open and keep working while you talk. You have your choice of speakerphone or ear-piece (depending on how public you want your convo to be). While the phone will intially default to a display showing the calling parties (up to 5 can be in a conference call at once, depending on your network), you can swap to whatever app you wish, for taking notes or reading from a spreadsheet, etc. The 'sound recorder' app will also operate during a call, and will capture both sides of the phone conversation very nicely.
It's not the 'uber PDA'. It's pretty big for a phone. As a combo-device, however, it does very well. The apps integrate with the GSM functions nicely. All my basic PDA needs are met: note taking, contact management, SMS management, faxing, email and simple web browsing. All the phone needs are there too, with the same features as most any Nokia phone, with nice GUI add-ons if you desire... with a battery lifespan that'll compete with any modern phone. These basic needs are quite well met by a device that still fits on the hip and only has to be charged at the end of the work-week, letting me leave the bulky laptop on the desk most of the time. If I really need to do more, I'll be sure to pack up the laptop and bring it along -- and even then, I can use the 9290 as a GSM-modem.
At the risk of sounding like some kinda company advert man, I'll just point people towards Mobile Planet. No, I don't work for them; I've just bought many fine wireless toys there.
They have various brands of 802.11b CF, such as:
Dlink
Casio
Linksys
Socket
and Symbol.
They also have the Xircom Springboard module that's being talked about in this thread.
One of the biggest debates about this product is the use of FRS/GMRS to transmit data, when the FCC rules for these frequencies is pretty firm on their use for voice only.
One website to refer to on these matters is the Popular Wireless Magazine BBS forums (a UBBS system). The Rino product has come under discussion a few times, including Garmin's petitioning of the FCC to violate the 'voice only communications' rule:
Before the
Federal Communications Commission
Washington, D.C. 20554
In the Matter of
GARMIN INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Request for Waiver of Family Radio Service Rule Sections 95.193(a) and 95.631(d) to Authorize Manufacture, Sale and Use of GPS Transmission Enhanced FRS Units
Request for Waiver of Sections 95.193(a), 95.193(b), and 95.631(d) of the Commission's Rules Governing Permissible Communications in the Family Radio Service
----
More on that thread is located here.
As a licensed GMRS user, I do worry what devices like this can do to the spectrum when they get popular. If it's implemented right, though, they'll be an incredibly useful tool.
This player is extremely popular with the Gold Wing motorcycling crowd (which I'm one of); many folks on the GL1800 list own them. Two observations come from motorcycle use:
For one, they are amazingly shock-resistant, even with the Microdrive. Be sure to get a 1G microdrive, and not a 340; the 340 pulls more power and is much less shock proof. Switching up to a 1G microdrive made all the difference; the player gets a good bouncing around in the fairing pocket, but no skips.
For two, the shuffle algorithm on this player needs help. The controls are a bit hard to operate with motorcycle gloves on, so most 'wingers just leave themselves to the mercy of the Shuffle setting. This thing likes to pick about 40% of the songs on the disk and cycle through them a few times before grabbing another 'chunk'. I'd much prefer the entire catalog be shuffled once (at the time Shuffle is selected) and then played through like a list that can be stopped and restarted. Only doing another 'shuffle' operation would change the order. Many MP3 players have this problem.
Other than those two comments, I dearly love this device. I got one w/o any CF cards for $79(!!), and threw away the headphones like everybody else. I share the Microdrives between the MP3 player and my Canon D30 digital SLR camera, and there are zero issues. It's fun being able to jam to great tunes on a ride, stop, swap to the D30 and take a few photos at a pretty vista, then put the microdrive back in the MP3 player and keep listenin'.
I take it you can't do email submission because your domain wasn't registered back when email forms were the norm through NetSol. My old domains I still can (or at least did, last renewal last year), but all the new ones I have to use their web tools.
Just call them and explain the situation. The hold times aren't terrible, and they have a number of verification methods where they can verify you and reset your password or just make the change. I've had to do this a number of times over the last five years for various employers with messed up authentication on their domains (usually an admin with the passwords leaving and refusing to tell it to them), and they've always gotten the changes made quite quickly.