Apple iPod Touch vs Linksys WAG54G2 Wi-fi DSL modem router

Google Fodder: My Apple iPod Touch could NOT connect to my new Linksys wireless WAG54G2 modem / router.

My other devices worked fine (PC with DLINK DWA-110 USB Wi-fi and an HTC Magic phone - with Android OS).

In attempting to get the iPod Touch to connect to the router I tried all the security protocols and changing passcodes. Nothing worked.

THEN, I changed the WAG54G2 router from the default wifi channel of 11 to 9....and the problem was gone.

Immediately.

It looks like the channel 11 on the Linksys WAG54G2 and the channel 11 on my Apple iPod Touch do not align closely enough to get connected. But other channels are sufficiently closely aligned to allow a reliable connection.

This may also be true for other devices. Try another channel if you have trouble connecting to the Linksys WAG54G2.

HPM Digital Electronic Timer Instructions

Google Fodder: I have one of these and couldn't work out how to set it, having lost the instructions. I found them here, but also include them here on my blog, in full (copy / paste), in case that link goes dead (Update: and it has, it seems)....as they do tend to do over time.

Time Display

To change from 12-hour display to 24-hour display, or vice versa, press the CLOCK button and hold it until the LCD display changes.

 Setting the day and time

Press and hold the SET Button until the day shown on the LCD flashes.

Press either the ▲ or ▼ button to select the correct day of the week.

NOTE: Holding down either the ▲ or ▼ button speeds up the selection process.

Press the SET Button again to confirm your selection.

The hour will now start flashing on the LCD. Repeat steps above to set the correct hour and repeat again to select the correct minutes.

Setting the timer

With the timer on Clock mode, press the ▲ button once to change to Program mode. “1ON” will be shown on the lower left corner of the LCD. This indicates that Program Block 1 out of a possible 14 blocks is now selected and the switch ON time can be set.

NOTE: If the timer has been previously programmed the current setting will appear on the LCD. You can re-set the Digital Timer at any stage by removing the battery.

Begin programming by pressing the SET button. The LCD will now show 12:00 or whatever was previously set, and the day(s) of the week will be flashing.

The timer has pre-set days already programmed into it to make it easier to program and to maximise the available program blocks.

Make your selection by pressing the ▲ button and the LCD will display the following in sequence:

• MO TU WE TH FR SA SU (all days of the week selected)
• MO→TU→WE→TH→FR→SA→SU (select individual days)
• MO WE FR (only Monday, Wednesday and Friday selected)
• TU TH SA (only Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday selected)
• SA SU (only Saturday and Sunday selected)
• MO TU WE (only Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday selected)
• TH FR SA (only Thursday, Friday and Saturday selected)
• MO TU WE TH FR (everyday but Saturday and Sunday selected)
• MO TU WE TH FR SA (everyday except for Sunday selected)

 You can navigate through the selection sequence by using the▲ or ▼ buttons. Press the SET button to confirm your selection.

The hour now starts to flash on the LCD. Select the desired hour by using the ▲ or ▼ button. Press the SET button to confirm your selection.

The minute now starts flashing on the LCD. Select the desired minute by using the ▲ or ▼ button. Press the SET button to confirm your selection.

The LCD display should now be steady, with nothing flashing. This allows you to verify that the correct day/s, hour/s and minute/s has been entered.

Press the ▲ button to program the switch OFF time. “1OFF” will be shown on the lower left corner of the LCD. This indicates that Program Block 1 out of a possible 14 is now selected and the switch OFF time can now be set.

Repeat the above steps to set the switch OFF time.

Press the ▲ button to select the next program block OR press the CLOCK button to finish programming OR refrain from pressing any mote buttons and the timer will automatically revert back to Clock mode.

Setting the timer delay function

This feature allows you to set a time for a delayed switch ON or switch OFF.

With the Timer in Clock mode press the ▼ button. The Bottom left hand corner on the LCD will show “d ON (or OFF)” indicating the timer is now in delay mode.

Press the SET button until the ON or OFF display flashes. Pressing the ▲ or ▼ buttons changes the status from ON to OFF and visa versa.

Pressing the SET button again confirms the selection and allows you to set the Hour, if so desired, or press the SET button again to se the Minute/s and again if you want to set the seconds.

NOTE: Pressing the SET button will allow you to navigate through the sequence of:

Status (ON/OFF)→Hour(s)→Minute(s)→Second(s)

You need only to set or change the components that you want.

For example: If you wish a table lamp to remain ON for 10 minutes after you leave the house, set the Status to ON and if the time on the LCD is all zeros you can proceed straight to the Minute and set that to 10.

After setting the required Delay period press the CLOCK button to return the Timer to Clock mode.

Activating the delay function

The delay function can only be activated when the Timer is in Clock mode and only when the Timer is plugged into an outlet.

Ensure the Timer is in Clock mode.

1. Press the “MODE” button so that the horizontal bar on the bottom of the LCD moves and sits above the AUTO that is printed on the front of the Timer.
2. Press the DELAY button to start the function. Pressing the DELAY button again cancels the operation. 
3. NOTE: After pressing the DELAY button the word ON or OFF will appear flashing on the LCD. 
4. Flashing ON: This means that the Timer will remain ON for the period that was programmed in the Delay mode.
5. Flashing OFF: This means that the Timer will remain OFF for the period that was programmed in Delay mode.

Activating the random function

The Random Function will turn an appliance ON or OFF on an irregular basis. Listed below are the criteria governing this operation:

• Minimum OFF time: 26 minutes
• Maximum OFF time: 42 minutes
• Minimum ON time: 10 minutes
• Minimum ON time: 26 minutes

To activate the random function ensure that the Timer is in Clock mode and that it’s plugged into an outlet.

Press the RND button once. The bottom left hand corner of the LCD will now show a flashing “r OFF”. This indicated the Timer is now in Random mode and it will remain in the OFF condition for a period anywhere between 26 to 42 minutes. It will then switch PN for a period anywhere between 10 to 26 minutes and then switch OFF again.

Pressing the RND button will cancel the Random Function.

Clock mode

During clock mode, the LCD displays:

• Day of the week (Monday at system reset)
• Clock (0:00 at system reset)
• Switching status (OFF at system reset)
• 'R' character if random switching is selected. (No 'R' displayed at system reset)

Override/Resume Preset Program

Press the “MODE” button to override or resume a preset program. The horizontal bar on the bottom of the LCD will move and sit about one of the three positions as listed below:

1. ON : override the preset program and Timer remains ON all the time
2. AUTO : resume preset program, Timer will turn ON and OFF automatically according to its present program
3. OFF : override the preset program and Timer remains OFF all the time

NOTE: When Timer is in Random mode the Delay function cannot be activated.

If you found this post useful, please consider a small donation in NZ$ via Paypal in recognition of the effort that has gone into this post and others. Thanks.

D-Link Wireless 108G Storage Router (DI-624S)

Google Fodder: If you are thinking of buying or have bought the D-Link Wireless 108G Storage Router DI-624s from DSE (Item XH0414) or elsewhere, there are a couple of things that are good to know that aren't mentioned in the package.

The firmware on the product you buy on the shop shelf is v1.00 and dates back to 2005. If you go looking for an update, you usually end up on the US dlink.com web site where you will be told support ended for the product completely in mid-2008 and there are no firmware updates. That annoyed me as I had only just bought the thing and thought it a bit rough that DSE was, apparently, selling old product for which there was no support.

Looking a little deeper, I found that on www.dlink.co.nz, the product may well be old, and it may well no longer be supported actively, but there is a bit more to be had than on the US site. In fact, there is even a firmware upgrade to v1.11 (August 21st, 2007 vintage) that adds some useful function and fixes some important bugs.

You want this update!

Unfortunately, you have to stumble around the site a wee bit to find it. Here's the magic recipe:

1. Go to www.dlink.co.nz
2. Click on "Support"
3. Select "DI" on the first "Select" dropdown list and "624S" on the "Select one" dropdown list
4. In the list of folders that appears, click on the " + " next to "Downloads"
5. Click on "Downloads for DI-624S"
6. To the right, click on "Firmware" for Rev A or Rev B. I needed Rev B. You probably will, to, but check the bottom of the router anyway, just in case.
   

This lets you download the firmware file and release notes and several other things, too.

Then all you need to do is follow the instructions that came with the router for making firmware upgrades. In summary, you'd login to the router and click on the "Tools" tab and then select "Firmware" from the list on the right. Then follow your nose. My router upgrade went perfectly and was all over in a couple of minutes. A download underway at the time was undisturbed other than a brief interruption.

Tweetdeck crashes Flash player

Google Fodder: On my 64-bit Ubuntu Linux 8.10, the latest (February 3rd file date) alpha 64-bit Adobe Flash Player for Linux will crash any browser (Firefox or SeaMonkey) if you access some embedded flash content while Tweetdeck is running. Tweetdeck (v0.22b) is an Adobe AIR app running on the 64-bit version of Adobe AIR for linux.

If Tweetdeck is NOT running, the Flash Player is stable....or at least a LOT more stable.

An example of content that crashes the Flash every time is: http://www.thedailyshow.com/index.jhtml

Plus simply opening www.metacafe.com will crash the Flash. The more Flash content there is on the page, the better the chance the Flash will crash.....and take the browser with it.

I've logged bug FP-1670 on the Adobe bug site.

Pinnacle PCTV Nano Stick (73e)

Google Fodder: I bought a PCTV Nano Stick yesterday at DSE for $129. Yes, it was an impulse buy. The sexy thing about this half-thumb sized USB device is it provides Freeview digital TV on your computer for barely more than third of what it costs to buy a stand-alone Freeview box for the telly.

It comes with software for Windows XP and Vista. Even better, it also works on Ubuntu 8.10 Linux out of the box and you need only install a digital-TV capable app like Kaffeine or VLC. It took 3 minutes and 21 seconds to download Kaffeine and install it. The Windows drivers and software took about 30 minutes to install. I'm not joking. Linux takes the lead. In either case, reception of the channels was no problem with the wee antenna provided with the PCTV Nano Stick.

But....and don't you grow to hate those "but"s?

The system this device needs to drive it properly is much more grunty than anything I own. All my systems are between 1.6GHz and 2.0GHz, mostly AMD CPUs of one sort (32-bit or 64-bit) or another, though my laptop is an Intel M430 at 1.73GHz. These systems are more than fast enough for everything else I use, so I have not seen any need to buy anything faster (and more expensive).

Systems like this can - at best - reliably play Internet radio and the radio available via Freeview (National Radio, BaseFM). For TV, they can handle the test patterns on the Parliamentary channel. But absolutely no way is anything remotely dynamic watchable.

On my 1.73Ghz laptop, the Windows software (TVCenter Pro) warns me my CPU isn't up to the job, and when I continue anyway, it simply seizes up after about a minute or so and you have to use the Task manager to kill it. On the same laptop, booting to Ubuntu Linux, Kaffeine will merrily play the (usually) fragmented, pixelated and essentially unwatchable video for as long as I care to watch. The video looked like I squashed a pile of blueberries on a mirror. The sound dies after about 10 seconds. Apparently I need a newer version of the FAAD sound support for the AAC-encoded sound. Or something like that. Google was my friend.

Bottom line for this device is: Don't buy it unless - as the box says (who reads the box? Lol!) you have a system with at least the CPU rating listed below.

• Intel Pentium 4.2Ghz or
• Pentium M 1.3GHz or
• AMD Athlon XP

I have none of those at the moment....but I plan to soon, so the device won't be going back to the shop. I also note that PB Tech sell it for $89. Oh well.

Linux: Atheros wifi can't see channels 12 and 13

Google Fodder: I had set my D-Link 624S wifi router to automagically select the channel with the least interference. It opted for channel 13. That was cool with all my systems except my laptop (Acer Travelmate 2483 with Atheros wifi chipset).

Googled around and found the bug on Launchpad. The key piece to sorting this out was adding this line to my /etc/modprobe.d/options and then re-starting my system (simple - brute force!):

options cfg80211 ieee80211_regdom="EU"

"iwlist wlan0 channel" previously only reported channels 1 to 11, but now shows all of them. No problems connecting to the AP now on channel 13:

steve@steve-laptop:~$ iwlist wlan0 channel
wlan0 13 channels in total; available frequencies :
Channel 01 : 2.412 GHz
Channel 02 : 2.417 GHz
( blah blah blah blah )
Channel 11 : 2.462 GHz
Channel 12 : 2.467 GHz
Channel 13 : 2.472 GHz
Current Frequency=2.472 GHz (Channel 13)

Beats Per Minute (BPM) software on Linux

Google Fodder: This is one of those blog posts you write so people will find SOMETHING on the topic when they Google it.

I was trying to sort out a playlist on the iPod that would be suitable for a long (couple of hours) fast, walk. Heart pounding stuff for uphill or down, mindfull that music with at least 100 beats / minute was best for a variety of physical pursuits, including keeping time while administering CPR.

I Googled around a bit and found that Amarok had a "BPM" column, so using "sudo apt-get install amarok" in a terminal, I installed Amarok on my Ubuntu 8.10 Linux laptop system and found......that it was just a column. It wouldn't calculate the BPM's for me. I would have to sort that out myself. Ta.

Back to Google. Located "bpm calc 4 amarok". It's a script that drives 'soundstretch' to work out the BPM for songs for use in Amarok. It adds the info directly to the music database! Great! Sounds like what I need.

I installed "bpm calc 4 amarok" and found that the author only supports MySQL databases, not the SQLite database Amarok uses by default. Well, I'm not adding the complexity of MySQL setup, admin and network access to my chosen problem. Not yet anyway. Maybe another day.

I reviewed options and chose another path. Maybe Windows.

Pistonsoft's "BPM Detector" looked promising and it's free. I downloaded it and was going to boot to Windows Vista, but instead decided to install the "WINE" support for running Windows apps on Linux. I had recently been very happy with DosBox on Linux for running my old DOS games, so maybe WINE was as good as that by now.

The result was that both the installer and the app itself work well with WINE.

In \home\steve\desktop, I ran "wine BMPdetector_setup.exe" and followed the installer prompts. I de-selected adding icons or things to the taskbar. Not necessary without a real Windows desktop UI and an unnecessary potential source of error for the install.

Then, to actually run the installed program, I entered:

wine "C:\\Program Files\\Pistonsoft BPM Detector\\bpmdetector.exe"

...and the app runs and gives me BPM values for each song. That done, I created a shortcut / launcher on the desktop so all I have to do now is click on an icon to start BPM Detector. I don't appear to be able "Select All" in a list and batch the BPM caculations, but it works fine if I click on each song one at a time. It can play the songs, too. No problems. Now at least I can get the BPM value for a given song and manually enter it into Amarok. Overall, the MySQL solution and "bpm calc 4 amarok" would have been better and faster if I had MySQL already running and knew more about how to drive it. That "if" was too big for me today. This alternative will get the job done, too.....

Here's a screen shot. Click on it to see a larger version.