With just one day to go before the launch of the mythical Apple tablet, here are my predictions for what it’s worth!

• Screen size will be between 9 to 11 inches
• Apple will release two versions, one with just wifi and one with both wifi and 3G and/or CDMA similar to iPhone and iPod Touch.  Apple will not make the mistake Google is making with Nexus One – Tablet needs developers and not all will be willing to sign up with Verizon or AT&T
• The back of the tablet will not be shiny with chrome as widely rumored, but will be rubberized for grip
• There will be no start button on the screen itself like in an iPhone but will be on the side or top.  A button on the screen wastes too much screen real estate
• Apps written for the iPhone will work with some modifications and atleast a recompile, but not directly
• The tablet will not have an in-built camera

Now, I’ll keep my fingers crossed and uncross it on the Tablet!

No related posts.

If you’ve been looking to buy a new router or replace your Linksys routers, now’s a good time! mwave.com has the ASUS WL-520GU for $29.99 with $10 mir.  Check out my posts on what you can do with this router!

You get a super stable router (with Tomato) and a low cost print or network server.

Related posts:

1. An Easy Guide to Installing Tomato on the Asus 520gu

Snow Leopard doesn’t include drivers for the MF4370dn printer. Nor would it carry over the driver from Leopard upgrade. To get the printer working again, goto this site select OSX and pick the driver for Leopard (10.5.7) and reinstall the driver.

The printer should appear when you send a print job, if not, add the printer manually.

Though neither Apple or Canon officially support MF4370dn, Leopard drivers work fine.

Related posts:

1. HOWTO: Get The ImageClass MF4370dn Working On A Mac
2. A Review Of The Canon ImageCLASS MF4370dn Laser All-in-One Printer For The Mac
3. Definitive guide to solving the sleep problem on the MacBook

Actual footage from Pakistan! You gotta see it to believe it!

No related posts.

Flying car – sorry. Jetpack – nope. Personal Robot – check!  And it’s called the Roomba!  Seriously this is the closest you could get to an affordable personal robot today that actually does something useful.

I recently purchased the Roomba 535. Being my first Roomba, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  When the Roomba actually arrived I was even more skeptical.  This thing looked puny compared to conventional vacuum cleaners.

I charged it, and set it loose.  I was pleasantly surprised!  This is an amazing device!  Not just from a vacuuming perspective, but from a geek’s perspective as well.  I’ve built robots myself and could relate to how it worked internally and it was absolutely fascinating!

Here’s a review as a first time owner and an electronics/software enthusiast.

Opening the box

When I opened the box, it had a small note: This robot contains an electronic and software interface that allows you to control or modify its behavior, and remotely monitor its sensors. For software programmers interested in giving Roomba new functionality we encourage you to do so.

What a friendly and an encouraging message! I’m usually used to rude Sony-esque warranty void messages.  (Remember the robotic pet Aibo? Sony was so against anyone interfacing or hacking it. Sony sent c&d notices to any fan website that it thought was encouraging users to hack the Aibo.  Aibo died a sad death, thanks to Sony)

The box contains the robot, a docking station, manuals, a spare filter, cleaning brush and the Virtual Wall. (I had to purchase C type batteries for the Wall as it doesn’t come with it).

The robot requires an initial 16 hour charge out of the box.

Running Roomba

Once I started the robot, it started off on a spiral pattern and then changed to a different cleaning pattern on hitting an obstacle.  The way it works is on sensing an obstacle, it slows down so as to not knock it down.  The robot has two brushes beneath rotating in opposite directions which works in tandem with a vacuuming chamber to collect dust. (No vacuuming bags to change!) And it does a surprisingly good job!

I was wondering how it might do on a corner as the shape of Roomba is circular.  The Roomba has a rotating brush on one end which manages to do a decent job collecting stuff from corners.

The Roomba boldly goes where no ordinary vacuums normally goes – under beds! And does a fine job too.

Stairs.  I really wasn’t sure what the Roomba might do near stairs.  I didn’t bother to read the manual and didn’t know if Roomba can handle stairs.  Before I could run to switch it off, the robot went straight toward the stairs.  I was half expecting an agonizing  tumble-crash-burn sound, but it braked right at the edge and reversed course!  These things come with cliff detectors that knows when to stop and reverse.

I have hard wood floors and Roomba does a very good job.  I’m not sure how it performs on carpets.  On small rugs it did an ok job.  But I found it worked best on hard wood floors.

What is the Virtual Wall?

My model of Roomba came with an optional device called the Virtual Wall. The VW is sort of a beacon to restrict the Roomba to a single room.  If you dont’ have this, you could place physical obstacles at the doorway or simply keep the room closed! Works just fine!

The VW also has a setting to guide it to the docking station.

Once the Roomba was done it stopped with a ‘done cleaning’ chime.  I had done a pretty decent job.  Took about 30 minutes or so but I had nothing to complain.

The creepy docking of Roomba

When Roomba is about to run out of charge it seeks out the docking station and docks itself for a recharge!  That by itself is pretty cool, but how it does that is fascinating.  When Roomba is close to the docking station, it slows down to a ‘crawl’. It sort of creeps towards the docking station.  It is quite creepy and fascinating to watch this!

Cleaning Roomba

If the dust chamber is full, the robot stops and its clean button starts flashing.  iRobot recommends cleaning Roomba after every cleaning job. This is more than just emptying out the dust chamber.  You actually have to clean the brushes of any tangled hair.  It is not that difficult actually but thought I should mention.

Baby’s happy

No, not the Roomba, my kid!  He just started crawling and that was the reason I wanted the Roomba.  It is just not practical to vacuum the house every week with a conventional vacuum. And Jr crawls everywhere!  Personally I think if you have a crawling baby, a Roomba is a must.

A geek’s toy

If you are into robotics you’ll love the Roomba!  It has the usual sensors we use in a hobby robot.  Comes with a bumber sensor, a cliff sensor (probably IR sensor), two independently controlled wheels with PWM and uses IR again to locate the docking station.  It uses RF to control the VW.

iRobot also published the serial codes to control the Roomba programatically.  If you are software programmer, you can go wild with this!

But how do you connect your computer to the Roomba?  I looked at the device and I couldn’t see any port whatsoever.  How are we to talk to this thing?  It doesn’t have bluetooth either.  There was absolutely nothing in the documentation that came with it. Yet the note was encouraging software programmers to play with it.  Was it a mistake?  Actually no.  Roomba comes with a hidden port!  A very well hidden port. I pulled the decorative lid on the 535 and it revealed a PS/2 style serial port!

I haven’t done anything yet, but I’ve interfaced robots with serial ports before and this was quite fascinating!

iRobot has done an excellent job with a consumer robot and they are constantly improving upon this.  They even sell a developer version of this for robot enthusiasts called iCreate which basically is a mobile platform without the vacuuming functionality.

As an engineer I’m excited, as a consumer I’m satisfied.  Thank you iRobot. I, for one, welcome our vacuuming overlords!

(image courtesy: Amazon & iRobot)

No related posts.

This is the coolest part of owning a BL-C131A!  You could be in the other end of the world and yet get a live stream from your net cam!  You can even pan and tilt the camera remotely!  You can even do this with a Blackberry or an iPhone (or any phone that supports html).

I initially resisted writing a howto for this, but looking at the number of queries, one might be in order!  I have to admit, the documentation from Panasonic is extremely confusing!  If you are not a network guy, you could get confused.  Ip4, Ip6, UPnP..!

So let’s get started!  I’m assuming at this point you already have the camera setup and working from your local area network (home). If not, check out my previous post.

• Goto Setup..UPnP and disable UPnP.  I know this is not what Panasonic recommends. But trust me, enabling UPnP is not wise. There is a reason this is disabled in all routers by default.

• Goto Setup..DynamicDNS, select Viewnetcam.com

• Select the Internet tab and disable Auto Port Forwarding and set ‘Allow Access from the Internet (IPv6) to No.  Again, this might seem counter intuitive, but IPv6 is not used widely yet. Select ‘Register with Viewnetcam.com’ and register. Pick an easy to remember domain name and register with viewnetcam.com.  Remember the password and url.  It will be of the format: <the name you selected>.viewnetam.com.  You will need this url to access your camera remotely.

• Now, open your router’s admin page.  Of course unless you are using Tomato, your screen will look a lot different than what’s shown here, but all routers will have an option for port forwarding.  Look for it and enter TCP for the protocol, 80 for Port and your camera’s IP address.  Description can be anything or blank.  Save. Some routers might require a restart.  In the screenshot below ignore the lines above the last line.  Those are specific to my setup and not relevant to this post.

• Now open Firefox and goto the url you setup at viewnetcam.com.  You should be able to see live images from your camera!  This will work from anywhere where there is internet connection.  Try the pan and tilt, it is very cool!
• If you have an iPhone or Blackberry, use this url instead: http://<your>viewnetcom.com/mobile

The above url is a specialized mobile version.  You can pan and tilt on your iPhone or Blackberry.

That’s all folks!  Let me know if you have any questions.  I’ll be happy to help.

Related posts:

1. Frequently Asked Questions On The Panasonic BL-C131A Network Camera
2. Setting up the Panasonic BL-C131A Network Camera Using a Mac
3. Mac Tip: Access Network Shares From Your Desktop

Sleeping is no mean art:  for its sake one must stay awake all day.  ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Unfortunately my MacBook decided to take the above quote literally! I never used to have sleep issues with my Mac, but somewhere along, it decided to stop sleeping. Maybe it was something I installed or maybe a OS X update.  I couldn’t be sure. And a google tells me I’m not alone!

Solving Mac's sleep problem

The symptoms were:

• My MacBook would sleep if I choose the apple ..Sleep menu option
• A lid close would put the MacBook to sleep
• But the MacBook would never go to sleep by itself (it used to)
• The display would shutoff though, but not the notebook itself (no pulsing led , but a steady light)

If your Mac has the above symptoms, read on.

The usual suggestion is to reset the PMU and the PRAM, but that’s like the ‘did you try restarting your xp’ solution from the Windows world! You know it won’t work, but you try it anyway!

Here’s how to troubleshoot this problem and put your baby to sleep!

• Open System Preferences..Accounts..Login Items
• You’ll see a bunch of startup items that’ll run when your Mac starts up
• Look for anything that is related to your USB port (printers, scanners etc)
• For me it was the Canon scanner driver
• Now open Activity Monitor
• For most items you saw in Login Items, you’ll find an entry in your Activity Monitor (not all, but most)
• Find the process and press the Quit Process button
• Go back to System Preferences..Energy Saver..Sleep
• Set the ‘Put the computer to sleep when it is in active for..’ slider to 1 minute
• Walk away for a minute or so!
• Your Mac should be asleep now!

If the above steps worked, unfortunately you’ll have to remove the offending process from your startup item. If it didn’t work, try a different process.  Remember, never kill an administrator process.  Select ‘My process’ in Activity Monitor to avoid killing an admin process.

If your Mac doesn’t sleep it is mostly likely due to a rogue usb process.  Canon and HP drivers are known for this. Remove them and your Mac will sleep again!

No related posts.

No related posts.

Though I like Apple products, I refused to sign up with AT&T for an iPhone. I bought an iPod Touch instead. A gorgeous device! Looking at it, it was quite evident the chrome will  get scratched quite easily.

I wanted a decent, reasonably priced protection for my iPod Touch.  Here’s what I wanted:

• I bought the Touch for mostly programming, so I wasn’t planning on taking it outside.  I wasn’t looking for protection from dropping the Touch.  Just something to prevent scratching
• I should be able to remove the case easily if needed
• Should protect the screen and the body
• All the buttons on the iPod Touch must be accessible
• Should be able to dock without having to remove the case
• Shouldn’t hide the elegance of the device

There were tons of cases for the iPod Touch! The aftermarket is huge!  There were a lot of paid reviews and astroturfing involved (my opinion).  I don’t think I spent as much time deciding on the iPod Touch as I did on deciding a case for it!

After spending days reading up on iPod Touch cases, I decided on getting the Incipio Feather case.  This is a review of this case.  I’ve been using it for about 2 months now.

Why Incipio Feather?

Incipio Feather addresses most of what I wanted from a case.

• Provides decent protection against scratches
• The case is extremely thin and beautiful. You can easily remove it if needed (I haven’t installed the screen protector).
• Incipio Feather comes with 2 screen protectors and the case. Most of the other brands I checked only provided the case and I would’ve had to spend extra to get the screen protector
• The case has slits on the side and the top for the volume and power buttons. The bottom is uncovered
• The case is very thin. Will you be able to use it with a docking unit? I really don’t know.  If the docking unit had some space you probably might be able to dock it without removing the case.  If the iPod Touch has a really snug fit, you might have to remove the case.  The Feather doesn’t cover the bottom, so you can charge it without having to remove the case
• The Feather covers the back and the three sides.  It leaves the chrome on the front and bottom exposed. It is a matter of taste, but I love the accent it adds to the Touch!  I have a Red case and a slight bit of chrome makes the iPod Touch look very elegant

What’s in the Packaging

The packaging itself is very Apple like.  Very well done!  You get

• 2 screen protectors
• A cleaning cloth with Incipio logo
• A screen protector air bubble remover
• The case

The case itself has a slight rubbery feel, so if you place it on a table it will not slide off that easily.

Installation

Installing the case takes hardly any time.  Very easy to install the case.  After trying out the screen protector, I decided against installing it.  The Touch’s screen is made of some special glass that prevents scratching that easily. And after two months of using the Touch, I haven’t seen a single scratch appear on the screen.  I did try one of the screen protectors though.  But after seeing air bubbles, I decided against it.

Drop protection

No I haven’t tried dropping the Touch!  The packaging claims ‘Shock Absorbing Protection’.  I don’t know, looking at it, I don’t think it will.  Again, that wasn’t why I wanted this case in the first place.  But if that is your criterion, I wouldn’t recommend this case.

Other cases considered

One popular case is the Invisible Shield by Zagg.  This is basically a transparent full wrap around case for the Touch. I did consider this, but decided against it.  The installation is supposed to be a nightmare, atleast from most of the reviews I’ve read.  The edges where the wrap terminates looks really ugly.  The Invisible Shield comes with some kind of liquid to keep the case in place.  Will it leave a residue if I decide to remove it?

I really liked the PixelSkin from Speck. It has gotten some very good reviews on Amazon.  The only reason I passed this was due to the fact it didn’t come with a screen protector. (At the time I was trying to decide, that was a major factor)

Conclusion

I think the Incipio Feather is a keeper. So far I’m quite satisfied.  If you have any questions about this particular case, do use the comments section. I’ll try my best to answer.

No related posts.

Why am I doing this?

With the prices of external drives falling faster than the stock market, I decided to invest in a Seagate FreeAgent Desk USB hard drive. I wanted to use my old, trusted 160GB hard drive as a shared storage resource that I can access anywhere from within my home network. In network lingo, it is called a NAS (Network Attached Storage).

A commercial grade NAS is pretty expensive, but the Asus 520gu router comes with a USB port (most routers only have ethernet ports), which opens it up to a number of devices. Converting a USB printer to a shared printer, converting your USB external hard drive to a network drive or both. (BTW, never, ever buy a Belkin hub).

So I bought the Asus 520gu, installed Tomato and everything was hunky-dory!  But, the spare 160GB hard drive was formatted for taking backups from my MacBook (HFS+) and Tomato runs Linux.  Linux can recognize drives formatted either using FAT or its native format Ext2/Ext3, not Mac filesystem, HFS+.

I wanted to partition my hard drive to use both FAT32 and Ext3. FAT32 isn’t a very efficient filesystem. It has a file size limitation of 4GB and more importantly it is from Microsoft.  Linux’s choice, Ext2/Ext3 has no such limitation.  The only difference between Ext2 and Ext3 is Ext3 is a journaling filesystem.  What this means is it has additional safeguards to protect against data corruption, like if you pull out your external drive without unmounting first.

So how do you format a drive to Ext2 or Ext3? Mac (or Windows for that matter) does not have any native tools like Disk Utility, to format a drive to the Linux format.  Enter gparted.

GParted “Live” CD

GParted is a cool free utility to partition and format drives to a variety of filesystem. GParted is a ‘live’ CD. What that means is, you boot into gparted from either a PC or a Mac and gparted would run entirely off your cdrom drive without touching your hard drive. Nothing changes once you boot back to Windows or OS X. Best of all, gparted is Macbook friendly.

What you’ll need:

1. Mac or Windows PC that can burn CDs
2. Blank CD
3. Patience!

Getting started:

1. Download latest version of gparted
2. Using Disk Utility on a Mac burn gparted iso into a blank CD
3. With the CD inside, reboot your Mac
4. While rebooting keep the option key on the Mac pressed, this will prompt you to choose where to boot from
5. Choose gparted. Don’t worry nothing is touched on your Mac

My external drive (/dev/sdc)was formatted for HFS and had two partitions – Mirror and Backup. (There is an additional partition created by Seagate with some Seagate specific firmware – /dev/sdc1)

I’m deleting /dev/sdc1, which contained some Seagate specific firmware.

I’m deleting the old partitions and  creating two new partitions – one Ext2  and one Fat32

All done! Now remove the cd and boot your mac. When booting press the option key to select OS X.

Your external hard drive is now has two partitions. One formatted to Ext2 and one to Fat32.  If you directly connect your hard drive to windows or Mac, you’ll be able to see the Fat32 partition, but not the Ext partition as Macs and Windows can’t recognize Linux filesystems.

A word of caution: In gparted, when you pick a device to format, be very careful.  You don’t want to pick your PC or Mac’s internal hard drive to partition, pick the external drive.  I don’t have to tell you this, but once formatted, all your existing data is gone forever, so make sure you take adequate backups.

Related posts:

1. Setting Up A Low Cost NAS Using Tomato