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Wifi Car:- Technology Hurdles

July 30, 2008 by · 1 Comment
This entry is part 14 of 4 in the series WiFi Car

When we develop something our own we may experience some technology issues. There are couple of technology issues with Wifi car. I will explain the hurdles below and I will suggest the solution or workaround.

The main hurdles we faced is stable electric supply to drive SBC, wifi router. Most of the Car have 12V DC output from the battery and associated dianomo. We need 20V DC with 3.5A rating and 12V with 1A rating. So we need to design some adapter to cope this. Some adapters are available online we can also buy the same. But we need to make sure that the adapter is stable one. By the time we are using a costume designed power supply for this.

Apart from the electric supply we faced another major issue. As we are using BSNL EVDO for internet connection we need the dialing driver and its stack for connecting the internet. We can’t directly use Wifi router with EVDO cards. Moreover EVDO cards can be connected to USB only. We are using a laptop to install and dial EVDO now. But we need to carry laptop every time for connecting internet, we need to avoid this bottleneck. Single board computer is a solution for this. We can install a linux operating system in a single board computer and we can plug the EVDO card in the USB available in single board computer. By using a single board computer we can reduce the power rating too. For a device from compulab (check the link above) the power rating is 3.3V and around 1A current. This device will also support operating systems like Embedded Windows XP and linux kernels. The device cost around $140, which is promising we can also use the same device as music player too.

In the coming days we will explain the procedure for installing each and every components described above. Coming post’s contain somesort of technology configurations. Don’t be baulked to ask your queries and doubts. Don’t miss any of the post in the series, you may get confused if you miss some.

Filed Under: Wireless · Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Getting things done through mindmaps.

July 29, 2008 by · 2 Comments

I was using to-do list until yesterday to maintain the list of pending works. But couple of months back one of my friend introduced me an online mindmap called mindmeister. He told me to start your online account and create your mindmap there. But I took around 5 months to create an account may be I am lazy :-) . But today I created account at mindmeister.

The mindmap is something similar to this.

What can I say the application is extremely cool. I used to maintain different list in my to-do list previously. But the main advantage using mindmap is we can visualize our entire pending works in a single diagram. Besides maintaining pending jobs we can also use mindmap for lot of purpose. For instance we can use mindmaps to explain concepts, explain  complex architectures, products architectures etc.

The online application mindmeister support 3 kind of editions which are classified according to the price and its features.

1) Basic free (free)

2) Premium ($4/month)

3) Team ($3/month)

This application does support all kind of web 2.0 feature. We can share, collaborate, easy AJAX interactions etc. The application does support export and import of your mindmaps. Premium and team edition support SSL so it can be used by corporates for creating product notes, product concepts etc. Another attractive feature the application is google gear enabled. So we can edit mindmaps offline. 

Filed Under: My thoughts · Tagged With: , ,

Make Your Windows Vista Explorer faster by disabling Thumbnail Preview

July 26, 2008 by · Leave a Comment
This entry is part 6 of 8 in the series Windows Vista Performance Tweak

You might be experiencing that your explorer is taking time for loading. One solution to minimize the loading time is to disable the thumbnail preview. The thumbnails are reduced size version of your content whether it is picture or videos. This thumbnail preview will help us to quickly find desired content from destination folder by the process of skimming.

The loading time of your explorer is due to the fact that the explorer application will scan the content and generate its thumbnails when we open the explorer or a particular folder. This ambit can be nullified by disabling the thumbnail preview generation. However some of the users like photoshop users, entertainment users, HTML developers are addicted by thumbnails because they really need it. They don’t need to bother about this post, because this process is not applicable for them.

Now I am going to explain the process of disabling thumbnail preview. Open up your windows explorer from your desktop or start menu or by hitting Windows + E button. Click on the menu organize on the top left of your explorer. From the menu select the menu item labeled Folder and Search Options. Check out the figure below.

After selecting the menu item another window will open which contain three tabs. On the Window click on the view tab and enable checkbox that is labeled Always shows icons, never thumbnails.

Restart your explorer, this time you can see magnificent difference in loading time.

Filed Under: Operating systems · Tagged With: , , ,

Post Series :- How To Make Your Car WiFi Enabled?

July 25, 2008 by · 4 Comments
This entry is part 13 of 4 in the series WiFi Car

Iamatechie always believes in wireless enabled innovative ideas and its experimentations. We proudly announce “how to make your car WiFi enabled with an internet connection so that you can access internet whereever you go“. We are starting the post series which describes and demonstrate how we changed our Chevrolet Optra to WiFi enabled car.

Initially we started experimenting with a GSM/GPRS card and phone for internet connection from AIRTEL, which was pretty slow. But we moved to a 2Mbps EVDO BSNL connection now which is also cheaper wireless connection available in India for an amount 550INR monthly rental.

We are now experimenting with a laptop and linksys router (wireless access to nearby devices). But we are planning to do with single board computer instead of laptop so that we can avert plug and play procedure for internet connection every time.  Now a days size of the single board computer is very less. Even the single board computer available within the size of a thumb drive :-) .

I guess all of my readers will participate for this experiment so that within couple of days we can bring our car Wifi enabled. Don’t miss the opportunity to participate for this experiment. Enjoy reading !!!

Filed Under: Wireless · Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Remove Happy Birthday Virus

July 22, 2008 by · 18 Comments

One of friend from Dubai told me about the Virus. He told me that their outlets got affected by this virus, its spreading very fast. It will loaded in the first time and will get affected in 1 – 2 weeks time. The name of the virus is Happy birthday virus.

Which all medias used for spreading?

Usually there are 2 main media’s that spread this Virus. One is emails another one is thumb drives. Be very care if you are using outlook as email client. Outlook has an option that will automatically downloads the attachment when we open that particular email.

What are the aftermath?

This mainly affects lots system commands like delete and some necessary commands that windows needed for its execution. We can’t change registry entry since the virus is executing.

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What is the name of executable?

The name of the executable is pretty interesting very similar to explorer.exe but explorcr.exe so that we will be confused. The executable loads in startup so we won’t be able to do our tasks.

Process of removal

Don’t forget to change the downloaded files extension to .zip and change exc file extension to exe!!!
Download below files (Security Task Manager and NOD32 Registry Fix)

Download file 1

Download file 2

2. Kill the process of explorcr.exe and delete manually from %systemroot%\system32 (its hidden). you won’t see happy birthday caption again, as soon as you kill the process
3. Delete manually also autorun.inf from the %systemroot% (its hidden)

Remark:
If you cant find that files, use some other file browser software such as captain nemo!! cause of virus disabled most of useful system command such as cmd, regedit, msconfig etc.
4. Insert windows xp cd-rom for copy ntldr from i386\ntldr to %systemdrive%
5. Run nod32 registry fix to recover system command
6. Restart your computer

Scan all usb storage and delete manually all of autorun.inf, explorcr.exe and foldername.exe. explorcr.exe delete ntldr fron the systemdrive. Use windows xp recovery console to recopy the ntldr, if the computer is already deleted by explorcr.exe.

Filed Under: My thoughts · Tagged With: ,

Windows Vista Bootloader

July 20, 2008 by · 2 Comments
This entry is part 5 of 4 in the series Windows Vista Tools

In one of my previous post I described the workaround for installing Windows XP in your pre-installed Windows Vista computer and the process of partition drive in Windows Vista. But I forgot to mention about the bootloader for Vista. When we have multiple operating system installed in our system we need to choose the operating system to boot while booting your system. So we need to install a bootloader for this.

When we install an Linux or Ubuntu in our system then a bootloader will be installed with the installation process. So we can select which operating system to load during the booting process. But we are installing 2 operating systems, Windows Vista and Windows XP both are Windows. Since the primary operating system is Windows Vista we need to install a Vista booloader. Download and install VistaBootPro.

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During the installation of VistaBootPro it will force to install .NET framework 2.0. Open the bootloader application. Select the radio buttons as shown in the figure below.

To add Windows XP bootloader entry, click on the Diagnostics menu item and then choose Run Diagnostics from the menu. This will scan the and find if there is an Windows XP in your system. Click on the “Manage OS Entries” tab and then click in the textbox for Rename OS Entry, and name it something useful like “Windows XP” or “Your Favorite name”.

Bootpro

Click the button Apply Updates and reboot the system. On your next boot process you can see the bootloader with options viz Vista and the Windows XP.

Filed Under: Operating systems · Tagged With: ,

Godaddy me domain fraud

July 18, 2008 by · 12 Comments

Yesterday night onwards me domains are opened for registration meanwhile GoDaddy played some fraud games to their customers. We registered couple of me domains but today we got a email saying that “Concurrent registration happened for the same domain so we are putting the domains for auction“. I am sure it is a guise, I worry whether such concurrent registration problems occur with godaddy’s database. It’s really a well planned game from the corporate.

If their is such a concurrency problem with database why don’t it happened previously? Is the architects and engineers at godady are too bad to predict and take remedial measures for this type of concurrency issues? If yes shame call us we can deliver you applications that are quiet stable than godaddy :-) .

There is no need for a reputed company like godaddy to play such scam against their valuable customers. I would say it was against company ethics. I don’t know how much bad impression are going to create against goDaddy simply because of this planned game. I feel pity on you goDaddy.

Filed Under: My thoughts · Tagged With: , , ,

Post series on Network attached storage

July 15, 2008 by · Leave a Comment
This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Network attached storage

Network attached storage is a concept in which storage is organized at file level on computer data storage attached to a computer network. NAS will provide data access to heterogeneous network clients, that means developer or a user who access data from a NAS storage is not be aware about the network client. Developer or user need to call the data, the NAS server will handle the storage clients issue(s).

The NAS unit is essentially a system with an operating system which is capable to handle NAS functionalities. The NAS can technically capable to handle all kind of computing task as it is a system, but we don’t use the system for computing instead we use it for file management in Network attached storage. The file management functions include data access, data storage etc.

The performance improvement can be done by adding RAID and clustering in NAS. My main aim is not to go in depth about network attached storage instead explain the concept of NAS and to set up a Network attached storage for my readers.

www.freenas.org is an open source Network attached storage which has a good operating system and web interface to configure the network clients.

Filed Under: Operating systems · Tagged With: , , , ,

How to partition drive in Windows Vista?

July 11, 2008 by · 9 Comments
This entry is part 6 of 4 in the series Windows Vista Tools

Now a days new laptops are equipped with Pre-installed Windows Vista. The most annoying thing is that, as the operating system is pre-installed we are not able to install another operating system. The pre-installed operating system take up the entire disk. I use both Ubuntu and Windows now I am not able to install Ubuntu in my laptop. I will explain how to make partition(s) in Windows Vista first and later I will suggest the workaround to install another operating system in your laptop.

Right click on your My computer Icon, click on the Manage menu item. Select the Disk management item from the new Window. This will display disk information on the right side of the window.

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Now we can use the Shrink Volume tool for re-partition your drive. Right click on the Vista Preloaded drive displayed there. You can see a menu item called “Shrink Volume” which will assist you for the re-partition. On the next window enter the amount to be partitioned in MB. The amount entered will remain as free space. You can allocate the rest of the free space to one or more drive by creating new volume on the free space. We can assign the drive letters after that. While assigning make sure the drive letter assigned for CD-ROM will not be allocated to the new volume(s). The process of partitioning ends here.

I am going to explain how to install another operating system in this. You can use the same process I described above but after shrinking the drive make the rest of space as free. Reboot your system and make the CD-ROM as the primary bootable device. Insert your bootable Ubuntu or Windows XP CD in your drive and start installation. Select the free space for the new installation. Continue the rest of installation procedure, I guess you might be familiar with operating system installation already. Enjoy reading!!!

Filed Under: Operating systems · Tagged With: ,

undefined gmail

July 9, 2008 by · 29 Comments
This entry is part 12 of 14 in the series gmail tricks

Today some of friends experienced some stability issues with gmail. All most all function are showing us undefined. All members in the chat list appeared as undefined. When I tried to IM my friend the chat is not received to my friend instead an yellow color displayed there. The main problem experienced was he can’t send email to anyone. An email service without mail sending facility :-( what anomaly?

Gmail chat list.

Gmail mail composing window.

I guess gmail in newer version is not much stable as before. A lot of bugs are there with the newer version of gmail. Team gmail will fix the bugs as soon as they can else it will adversely affect the popularity of gmail. The yahoo mail new version is pretty fast now a days than before. Wake up gmail team fix the problem or revert the solution to some stable version for the time being.

Resolutions.

1) Switching your gmail to older version.

2) Disable greasemonkey script called Gmail Conversation Preview. (Thanks Matt, Kenly, Patric and everyone those who found the a resolution)

3) Use different Browser.

4) Disable Better gmail.

Alternative solution is to use some other mail service for some time :-) , by the time Team gmail will fix it.

Filed Under: Web · Tagged With: ,
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