Bots, PCs, Hacks, oh my!

HD on the Xbox port of XBMC

2010-05-30T19:44:00.000-04:00

There was a discussion on Lifehacker about the end of life for XBMC on Xbox support this past friday, and a discussion was raised about HD on your XBMC enabled Xbox.

I for one want to make the most use out of my HDTV without having to spend a lot on a PC that just does media playing. There's cheaper ways, and having a softmodded Xbox also provides disk-less gaming, whether it's actual Xbox games, or emulators from past consoles. Last summer, I was poking around eBay and saw auctions for component cables for the original Xbox. I knew nothing about the capabilities of the Xbox, as I had a generation gap from the Dreamcast until I played a PS3.. Been out of the loop! I saw that some games were HD capable.

How this relates to XBMC: I started seeing things about how Xbox can't handle HD movies, and I know in it's raw form it cannot. Hell, you need a semi-decent machine (plus VLC) to handle a raw MKV Blu-Ray rip. So my first thought was, how then do I convert my *obtained* rips to a format that will work good on the Xbox? I found out about Handbrake, and continued to Google along trying to find the best settings. Here's my older blog post relating to this. In short, you crop off the 1280 width to 960, while keeping the height the same. You also knock the target file size to 3/4 of the original. Less data to send, but the video quality stays virtually untouched. Be sure 2-Pass encoding is also selected! Obviously I had no clue at first, and now it's still a little trial and error, but it's generally relating to the audio stream and passing it through to the receiver.

The cables on board:

I purchased Psyclone's Component cables for the Xbox, which also features a Optical out. This runs directly to my 5.1 capable stereo receiver. I also kept the Audio RCAs plugged into the TV so that I could still have audio if the Toslink was being used by the HD cable box (only one optical input)

Picture settings:

I kept the TV in frame for a few pictures to prove the concept here. I'm also running an Xbox-Optimized Confluence theme which was missing from the Xbox ports. That and other Xbox friendly HD-ish themes can be found here. As you can see, once the cables are plugged in, you should be able to go into the Unleash X dash and change your resolution, as well as in XBMC. 1080i is NOT recommended, as it does not seem to play nice with the RAM. Notice my TV says the output is 720p.

What are your thoughts? Yes, it's not TRUE HD. As in, not what a Blu-Ray can do. But this is darned near close to it. Think of it as the Xbox friendly skins are, but for your video files. Everything still outputs at 720p, plus I get 5.1 surround! These video files have been tested on both a wired connection and wirelessly via an Airport Express. It can be done via wireless just fine, but I always recommend a wired connection.

DD-WRT, we meet again...

2010-03-06T14:52:00.000-05:00

Long time no blog eh? It's been busy since graduation has kicked in, but only lately have I had a ton of work to do. Most notably, I've done a revamp on my whole server setup. The old media server that has been on this blog for a long time has been re-purposed into a Hackintosh. This still has some bugs to fix, but I'll explain it in a later post when I finally get everything worked out.

This morning, I woke up to the equivalent of a nuclear holocaust on my network. Everything was down, nothing was connecting to nowhere. Eventually, I tracked it down to my old Buffalo router which I've had running for 3 years with DD-WRT. I gave it a hard reset, and it seemed to do, but it seemed like there was still something not right.. I updated it from v24 to v24 SP2, and it was nice to upgrade it but I was still missing my WDS with the ASUS router I have in the basement.

Then I googled upon this: http://ftp.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=315423&sid=cc6c26062a9e0dec854c9f3ad42bfc26 and the solution at the bottom pointed exactly to what I had going on. I was using WPA2 Mixed Personal, but it seems there's a bit of a connection issue with that and WDS. Once I changed the settings on both routers to WPA Personal, they saw each other again, and all is well in the world... mostly.

I also now need to etch in stone some static addresses, namely for my Server and Desktop!

Obsessed with USB

2009-09-27T00:34:00.000-04:00

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/get_your_hack_on?page=0,1

I was browsing Lifehacker today and found an inspiring article. I'm going to totally make a few USB accessories ASAP. Progress to follow

Upcoming Projects

2009-08-06T11:52:00.001-04:00

I may not have things to post all the time, but stay tuned.. In about 2 weeks, I'll be moving back to school for one more semester, and the apartment will be a media heaven by the time I get done with it :-D

Also, I'm currently trying out the MobileNavigator iPhone app, and comparing it to xGPS. So far it has some ups, but there are still some small things that xGPS does better. I'll have my final thoughts real soon.

Trying to conquer the stream!

2009-07-07T02:04:00.000-04:00

After getting my music library all sorted out, I've now moved on to fixing my movies to have them all stream smoothly and of the best quality possible. I recently acquired some component cables for my X(bmc)box and the quality is AMAZING! So now, how to carry that HD-ish quality over the network without the choppy-ness I've been accustomed to dealing with so far?

Obviously I can accomplish this with the ever popular Handbrake. If you don't have this software installed you're missing out. So far, I've been a retard when it comes to encoding videos properly. I've never taken the time to sort it all out and put two and two together, until now.

Best forum post I could find was this: HandBrake • View topic - XBMC on Xbox: optimal HB settings to convert 720p x264 mkv?

Most of my HD quality videos start off as .mkv (Matroska) files. While it's a great format for high quality movies, it's a bitch for Xbmc to decode. Hell, anything besides an avi is chancy ;-) I've started to take notice of which encoding to use, and what seems to work best is Xvid/MPEG-4, with a slightly dialed down resolution from the 720p standard. Mix in the audio right (for those pesky DTS audio codecs, use the mp3 to at least salvage 2ch stereo, otherwise use AC3) and voila! In some cases, Xvid was still sloppy, so I tried FFmpeg. I'm giving the Xvid another shot with the dialed down resolution and see if there's still chop. I can't fast forward on the FFmpeg videos!

Your mileage may vary, but I am enjoying Transformers and other 720p/1080i movies on my Xbox currently :-D

Fixing the Notes app on the iPhone

2009-03-15T13:27:00.001-04:00

When I upgraded my iPhone to 2.2.1, I did a full restore on my phone. I backed up everything and wiped the phone clean. Man, it was fast! Check out this link to keep your iPhone in top shape:

How to have a blazing fast jailbroken phone

Anyways.. after I did this, my phone was indeed fast. However, all my notes that I had in the Notes app was un-editable. In fact, I couldn't create any new notes, or delete the current notes. 2 weeks later, I finally get time to fix the issue. Here's how you fix it: (Thanks to the MMI forums)

SSH into your iphone go to /private/var/mobile/Library and change the owner to the Notes directory and it's files:

Open up terminal in WinSCP, and type:
chown -R mobile Notes

and test if you can save or modify any note.

PS2 Softmod.. Whew what a mindblower!

2009-02-28T18:19:00.000-05:00

So 2 months ago roughly, I acuired an Xbox and a PS2 off my cousin-in-law Billy while my father and I were up in Detroit. Both were in decent shape, and the first thing was do XBMC with the Xbox. That has been a killer softmod, and the guys and I love it here at the apartment for movies.

http://ashholt.googlepages.com/ps2softmod

It's only been until recently that I went through with softmodding the PS2. I bought an 80GB Maxtor which is the recommended HD to use for the Network adapter. This weekend I did some research, and with limited places to look, I ended up with an OLD school Gameshark 2 to use as the swap disc initiator. After much researching, it seems that there was only certain USB drives that could work to swap data from the USB to Mem Card. Without the data on the Mem Card, nothing will work.

After much consultation with my work buddy Josh, we found a burnable install disc (Here:http://blog.e-tutorial.info/2008/10/how-to-install-ps2-memory-card-exploit.html) that would work with the Gameshark to get the data onto the Mem Card. Everything went through, and now we can harness the power of the 80GB HD and HDLoader!

Follow what both guides have done, the only variance is the cheat system you use (Codebreaker, Action Replay Max, Gameshark, etc)

Use a PS1 game that you never use! The game will have to stay in as the trigger if you run the PS2

Been a month or so, but I has updates!!

2009-02-05T18:16:00.000-05:00

First bit of info is only this... It's amazing how much difference it makes when you un-kink a coaxial cable:
from 200KB/s to 1.1MB/s like it was when we first moved in. Can't belive I didn't notice it until now.

Second thing.. I recently started fresh on a new hard drive and found out that transferring all the program data over to the new HD isn't all that hard, but the trickiest thing was iTunes and my iPhone. Make sure you have program folders and your documents and settings folders backed up!! I never realized how many things are located in application data.. especially iTunes. Windows Address Book saved me after I realized my contacts were wiped from my phone. Location of your contacts from there are: C:/Documents and Settings/[username]/Application Data/Microsoft/Address Book. You'll see your .wab file there and all you need to do is import!

App Update Issues with iPhone (argh!!!)

2008-12-19T14:13:00.000-05:00

So for the past month, I've been experiencing issues whenever I had an App update with certain apps on my iPhone. It would not update and give me an iTunes error code 0xE800002E and told me it could not update the app. After much digging and searching and finding numerous answers that DIDNT work, I stumbled upon 2 people's posts about the exact issue and here's a fix for everyone who has had this issue for a while:

The iPhone 2.1 does fix a few things that users have been asking about (except for copy and paste, of course), but one thing it does not fix is the annoying “0xE80002E” problem, where you cannot install an update of an application to your iPhone. This is getting fairly annoying as it now happens to me just about every time I download new updates. After searching other websites and playing around myself, I have come up with a “solution” that works for me. Your milage may vary.

Download updates
Sync iPhone
Dismiss error message
Click the “Applications” tab and choose “Selected Applications:”
Uncheck the apps that are giving you update problems. iTunes will confirm that you wish to delete these from your iPhone.
Resync your iPhone. The apps will have been deleted.
Re-check the apps in the “Applications” tab
Resync your iPhone yet again

Your apps (in their updated state) should now be once again on your iPhone, and all error messages should be gone. The only downsides to this method is that it takes a long time, and it deletes any saved settings and content from the app. But at least your app will be updated and there will be no error messages.

Thanks Derrick!! www.derrickgoodfriend.com

Lazyness part 2

2008-10-06T12:16:00.000-04:00

I was able to finish up most of the big tasks at hand yesterday, and here's the results:
Did some machining of the plow's arm, took off some much needed ounces. The bolts on the plow will be replaced with some grade 8 bolts before the event starts. Also some last minute reinforcement will happen.

Here's a almost done look at the bot:

The quest for sheer laziness!

2008-10-05T00:31:00.000-04:00

I knew for a while that the Franklin Institute event was coming up, but after the PN regional I kinda fell into that lazy slump that I always do before robot events.. So now here we are a week out from the event, and I'm NOW just starting to build for it. The original plan was to have a 12lb, 30lb, and my 1lb bots ready for the event, but like most of my plans, was overshot by a friggin mile. So here's my progress so far... ONE ROBOT

The 12lb bot is based off my really old 1lb robot Conceptual Chaos, aptly named SUPER Conceptual Chaos. Best part about this robot is the amount of stuff I am reusing. Total, I think I've spent $15 on actual materials from McMaster and that's about it. Yes, it's only a pushy bot, but the "Concept" is that it's a big wheeled robot with a tiny wedge/plow. It's at least not a box with a wedge.

To start off, this is the actual chassis. There really isn't much to it. It's probably 4"x7". I've gone with steel just cause it's faster to make a chassis, and there's no machining to be done (aka mill). I found what steel I had left, and found that the only 3/8" tubing I had was on a similar older 12lber of mine. (For those on the bot forums, it was Pitchfork) So that got hacked apart.
Here's a mock-up of the whole chassis assembly. Kiddie car GBs with some slightly older motors I bought from All Electronics eeons ago.
I ran into a snafu when putting the "bearing blocks" in place. I had some tack welds on the inside of the chassis that I couldn't remove, so parts had to be hacked out but it ended up fitting in. I still had a ton of thread inserts to use, so the bearing blocks got them to help keep the screws connected well.
Motor mounts installed.
Tires and ALF hubs installed, still need to do the outsides tomorrow.
Here's what's left to put on.. 1/2" bar of 6061 Alu (I probably will pocket it a little..) and a scrap piece of 1/8" Ti that wasn't used on a never finished 120lb bot from 3 years ago. Actually, funny side note, the whole plate that the piece was off of was from Jackrabbit (ya know, that speedy thing that fought at Battlebots?)

Okay okay, back on track.. I'll try to bend the sides tomorrow with a torch and a ton of prayers, but I doubt itl work. I'll put a little block of aluminum behind the wedge to keep others at bay too. Everything checks out to around 12lbs, so I should be okay!

PwnageTool = Epic FAIL

2008-09-11T11:01:00.000-04:00

Looks like iTunes 8 is starting to crack down on using IPSW rebuilds and DFU restores to Jailbreak. Hooray QuickPwn! I am eagerly awaiting how soon it will take to pwn the 2.1 Firmware coming out tomorrow..

I haven't been updating this as much, but I plan on getting back into the swing of things once this weekend passes by. I've been busy settling back in at school. I've got 3 bot build reports to do for you guys when I get to them. Franklin Institute is a month away!!

Addendum to discount

2008-08-25T19:29:00.001-04:00

15% Discount on my iPhone bill :-D Yes, this works as long as you have a valid school ID!

Possible 15% discount on my cell bill?

2008-07-31T01:51:00.000-04:00

http://www.appleiphoneapps.com/2008/07/how-to-save-15-on-your-monthly-iphone-3g-att-bill/

Check this out. I signed up for it, and I'm awaiting confirmation. I'm still enrolled at my college, so I'm hoping for a slight discount! :)

Your Mileage May Vary

Giving In To A Higher "Power"

2008-07-24T09:01:00.000-04:00

So last week I had the computer idling, when all of a sudden the screen went blank and never came back.. I thought windows had halted on the sleep mode, but I was totally wrong. There was power still coming to the board and fans. Really weird. After spending half a night figuring out what was wrong, I ended up giving into a higher power. I've become acquaintences with the guys at Computer Wizards, and I had them do a diagnostic to figure out what exactly was the culprit.

Turns out the power supply is dead on the 12v side.. ugh.. That's TWO power supplies killed in TWO years. Wonder if I can get warranty? :) Either way I'm not going back to an Antec.. *shudders* The guys at Computer Wizards suggested Seasonic power supplies, and I checked it out on Newegg and elsewhere. Definitely great reviews, and a 5 year warranty. 5 freakin years! Also they do have a modular design which will help with cleaner wiring and only using the cables I need. I'll bite the bullet for the price that it is. Just need 30ish amps on the 12v rail =)

I should be back up Monday, and hopefully for a LONG time.

iPhone 3G baby!

2008-07-13T16:04:00.000-04:00

Simply put, I wanted this phone since I heard they were doing a 3G version. I waited in line for 5 hours (5:30AM until 10:15) and got the 4th to last phone that the local ATT store had.
Okay, side story here... Take a look at the tool on the left in the white hat. This guy was trying to get a phone for him and his wife whom both had plans with ATT. Now, the wife couldn't be in line (1 phone per person), so he asked the associates before they opened up at 8 if he could bring his son in line to vouch as an "authorized user" for the 2nd phone. They agreed to it. NOW.. the kicker.. A friend of theirs drops the 2 year old off in his stroller, and they wait in line. Some of the guys immediately behind him were giving him heat for pulling some shenanigans with this, and rightfully so considering we were getting the last few phones. We get inside, and while I'm ahead waiting for the next rep, they tell the guy that they can only sell him one because the kid came AFTER they opened at 8, which essentially counts as gipping in line! The dude obviously flips out, and gives a dramatic speech about having his son out in the heat and telling them they lied to him.. it was priceless. This nerdy dude was complaining the entire morning about them being tight lipped, "lying" to him about what was left in the store, etc. He got what he deserved.

*end rant*

Anyways, I know have this beast of a phone, and I must say I am impressed, but there is some room for improvement.

Pros:

WiFi RULES on this phone. Lightning fast speeds, instant streaming of music.
GPS RULES on this phone. The locator is fast, and nearly dead-on.
Free Apps and Web Apps work really well! All the ones I have tried out so far really do make use of the phone well.
The camera is definitely a step up from my CU500. The quality of picture is smoother.
Built in features are nice, plus the headphone jack is perfect for my car.

Cons:

Mostly smaller quirks, but the firmware is a little weird at times. Almost like random actions. I'll unlock the phone from sleep and it goes straight to contacts. Safari randomly closes too.
Programs stopping when you hit the home button. Lame
Battery life, but that was already a known fact.
The accelerometer is very picky. Sometimes it's instantaneous in flipping sideways, other times it takes a few for it to kick over.
Bluetooth compatibility. I can't use my HT820 Stereo Headphones! The stock earbuds are a little loose for me, but I can deal with it for now. Looks like I need to get a regular pair of headphones again. Ugh.

Overall, it's small things that I can deal with, but this phone is capable of way more things that I need around. It is worth the investment.

Improving the 1lber

2008-07-13T15:51:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, I stopped by my friend Jim's in South Philly to catch up on things and also to work on my 1lb bot "Absolutely Naut VDD".
The bot took the worst beating it has in 2 years at Motorama. As you can see, after the teardown was done, there was more damage I didn't see. The aluminum support on this side was tweaked... 1/4" aluminum.. TWEAKED! Ugh. In any case, Jim and myself did some machining to improve the only weak part left on the bot: The weapon supports.
Here's one of the rails we did. More meat in the center, switching to a dead shaft for strength. We also changed over from timing belts to round belts.
All that's left to do is get needle bearings for the pulleys, and buy some roll pins to hold everything together. I also need to rework the frame, as I think it's time to get away from carbon fiber rod. It's strong, but the joints are the weakest spot on the frame. Come Moto, this will probably be Naut's last hurrah in its illustrious 4 year run. Hopefully finishing in the top 3 for the 3rd year in a row.

Rob from the rich, and give to the poor!

2008-07-08T18:03:00.000-04:00

So I just found out my Sceptre's ATSC/QAM tuner can pick up un-encrypted cable signals.. Hahaha this rules!

At home, we don't have a cable box, but we do have analog cable. Looks like they don't protect a ton of channels in the area here ;-)

UPDATE: So, I really do get a ton of channels!

25+ Extra Digital channels (HD, 420i) with totally better resolution than Analog cable, Dolby Digital
Most of the Music Channels, Dolby Digital
Only 5 HD Channels tho.. signal gets weak after channel 113 on the tuner. TRUE 720p HD with 5.1 surround!! Incredibly sick!!

I won't complain for free, but I wish I got G4 and MORE HD channels! :-p

Out with the old, in with the new!

2008-07-08T16:44:00.000-04:00

So after looking to mess around with the Mini PC's motherboard (spreading the heatsink to help dissipate heat) it appears I've killed the board. It boots up, but gives no display :( Oh well. I have no use for the intel d201gly2 for a while now anyways...

But on the bright side, I did pick up a PSP on a trade for my RC18T. The PSP comes with custom firmware. Dark Alex's 3.40 OE-A to be exact. It's a nifty CFW with an easy recovery menu. It took me a little, but I got the hang of it. I've got World Tour Soccer on a standalone .iso and it runs great!

Only downside to it is that it is a redundant system for me... The web browser has a nice proof of concept but sucks for streaming media. Good for quick browsing on the go. It will most likely end up being traded in when I go for the PS3, but we'll see. It's fun to experiment with considering you can essentially brick the system and recover it... every time!

The new TV!

2008-07-05T16:22:00.000-04:00

Last week I got myself a new toy :-D Newegg.com - SCEPTRE 32" 16:9 8ms 720p LCD HDTV X32BV-Naga+

For the $550 price tag (and free shipping when I got it..) you get an LCD tv that uses OEM components, and can support 1080i! After toying around with it for several days, I can say that running my main PC from DVI to HDMI is the sickest thing I've seen... Playing CoD4 on there is AMAZING.. the framerate stays near 60FPS at the TV's native resolution! (1360x768p). Also it smokes away my mini-pc in terms of video performance on DVD. Until I get a PS3, this will definitely suffice for my DVD player.

A small lesson in router management

2008-06-17T00:05:00.000-04:00

After helping my girlfriend's dad set up his wireless network and after flashing the BIOS on the gf's lappy, I got on an upgrade kick and saw if I needed any new driver updates. Turns out that my uber-router (aka DD-WRT's god-like software) finally updated to a final version of the current software. Pretty damn sweet! More features designed specifically for my router (Buffalo's WHR-G125, which btw seems to have an injunction against any wireless products...)

Anyways.. besides the sidetracking of the new router features, I was thinking about any other way I could improve my FPS rate for Call of Duty 4. Hmm.. what about port forwarding? I'd think it would matter more on the server side of things, but I decided to give it a try on my end. The common port used for CoD4 is 28960. Maybe it was luck, or coincidence but it helped out more with bullet register. Shots appeared to be hitting dead on. I'll see how this goes for a week...

Check is in the mail to me from selling my heroclix... The time to save up for a PS3 and a 3G iPwn begins!

Attacking the FPS bug..

2008-05-07T13:34:00.000-04:00

I finally bumped up to 4GB of RAM on the main computer, and I saw that CoD4 was hanging after a few minutes of play.. I decided to investigate this after consulting my Mobo's manual and finding that I should remove the vid card before upgrading memory to avoid memory conflicts. When I took the vid card out, I did a general cleanup, and I caught a whiff as if something had fried.. Turns out the puny little fan on my GeForce 6600 took a dive and has probably been like this for a few months.
I did my research, and luckily Computer Wizards here in town had the right replacement I needed: The Zahlman V700 VGA Cooling Fan.
This beast of a fan is quiet, yet pretty darn efficient. The LED fan is pimp too ;-)
This fan uses a reinforcement plate to help secure the fan onto the card.
A little bit of Arctic Silver, and add the provided heatsinks for the memory chips and voila!

After this (and my new LANBox to replace the Sucky QPack..) I popped in CoD4, and got slightly better results, but it still seemed like I could do more. I found some help perusing through Google, and found this:CoD4 Tricks Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer Tips. VERY helpful page on how to max out your FPS, as I was getting a steady 35FPS. You need around 60FPS to have a seamless game. After running the in-game console and tweaking a few settings, I have this:
Click the pic to see a better resolution shot. I've got around 80FPS! During most heated situations, it's down near 50. The biggest increase I saw was taking away the shell ejections, and upping my refresh rate to 72hz. I also found the "sweet spot" resoultion, which is slightly under what I normally use: 1080x768.

Finally I can start to hone in my skills on the PC! Next up is getting GTA San Andreas to work again.. Stupid audio drivers..

But wait... there's more!

2008-04-30T16:20:00.000-04:00

So after the battery was installed properly, next thoughts were: "How am I charging this?". Generally I'd have leads to plug into.. But since this setup uses banana plugs, alternate ideas were needed. The solution was to make a set of leads that plugged in via banana but also have taps to balance the pack.
If you notice, the center port on the pack acts as the tap. From + to the tap, it's the first cell's voltage, and from the tap to the - lead, it's the other cell's voltage (as confirmed by my voltmeter). This is how all lipo balance taps work. It's just giving you each cell's leads for the balancer to discharge each cell individually.
The tap takes a 2mm banana plug. I knew none of the local Hobby shops and electronics stores would carry them. I realized my Micro-T's brushless motor uses those size plugs to plug into the esc. Since the vehicle needs an overhaul, I decided to swipe a plug and wire it for the LiPo balancer. Now, how to plug it to my Blinky? Easy.. Futaba plugs happen to be the right spacing for the Blinky's pins. I only need 3 leads for the pack, so it's a perfect (and cheap) fix. All that's left is some soldering, annnnd....
Voila!

BTW, if you're in a pinch, a tamiya male plug lead will fit in the tap port.

Gettin ready for outdoor TC racin'

2008-04-30T16:02:00.000-04:00

Well the local track by me starts their summer outdoor season this coming weekend, and I decided to make the jump to Li-Po for my Touring Car. Stormer had a good deal, I got a pair of Orion 3200mAh packs for $66 each. Not shabby.
So I unpack the batteries and go to fit them in the car and I realize, there's something that's in the way.
As you can see, the T2's rear bulkhead has a small hump to contour the NiMH cells used normally. This was getting in the way of the battery sitting in right. After consulting the RC forums, I broke out my dremel. It took some small work, but I eventually cleared out the space needed for it to fit in.
Another thing you'll run into with the T2 is that the strap post sits lower than the LiPo does. To prevent some decent bending of the strap, I just shimmed it up with a .032" washer. Easy fix :)

Here's a visit to gadget corner...

2008-04-13T20:47:00.001-04:00

Well today provided to be interesting... I picked up a few things at ridiculous prices..
First was a 2GB Sony Cybervault USB drive.. for $12!! Killer deal, and the pre-installed software was easily removable after a format ;-)

Next, I scored a Staples offshoot Bluetooth earpiece for my car for $20. I must say for a no-named staples licensed product, it's quite good! The mic works really well, I can hear everyone in the car, and the clip on piece is removable which saves breakage. Perfect for travel use. It also came with a spiffy charging/carrying case:

Last but not least.. I found a pair of flops that trumps my Reef Fanning bottle opener flops..
Meet Reef's Dram flops.. now, what's so special about it?
Ka-ching! A hidden polyurethane flask embedded in the heel!
It takes an allen wrench (with bottle opener as well) to open up the cap, which by the way, has a rubber gasket to prevent leakage! It also comes with a tiny funnel to pour in your drink of choice.
Cool thing is that it has a gauge on the bottom to tell you how much is left.. Each flop can carry about a shot and a half's worth. And since they carry these at the outlets, I picked them up for under $20. But that of course was with a discount coupon ;-)

Perfect way to make my coke taste slightly better =)

DDR Pad Part 4

2008-03-26T22:20:00.000-04:00

So I've finally got some pictures of how the wiring went.. not much but it will suffice.

Here's the board after cleaning off the black stuff with an abrasive bit. I tinned all the leads as well. There's 5 legs on either side and the ground in the center. Which is what?
From Left to Right: Start - A - Right - X - Up ___ Ground____ Down - Y - Left - B - Back
Next comes converting the Xbox controller plug with a standard USB plug. The Xbox controller is a standard USB plug, but the output is different. The colors match up. There's a yellow lead from the controller as well, but that apparently is not needed.
Ghetto finished conversion. I didn't have any shrink on hand, so electrical tape and duct tape did the job just fine.
The finished product. I used the Up Down Left and Right inputs, as well as start and back which were wired up to a small project box that housed 2 arcade style buttons that my feet can easily tap on when needed.

There you have it! It works just fine, I just need to fab a bar for myself and get a 1/2" sheet of plywood to help reinforce my weight on the pad. Next time I do a pad, I'll be doing the other trigger method mentioned and try and put lights in it.

DDR Pad Part 3

2008-03-19T16:23:00.001-04:00

Now that I have the triggers all figured out, it's time to start finishing this up! All the wired leads were soldered onto the metal sheets with rosin core, which seems to bond the wire well. As you can see here the bottom arrow is all set, minus an arrow graphic.
The plates were still a little loose, and I recall checking on a few of the pad pages that there was a corner piece that needs to be put on to help support. A little dab of wood glue, and my corner pieces were on. One for each corner of each arrow.
Here's the finished arrow triggers.
For the arrow graphics, I simply cut out the arrows off the soft pad I had gutted. It was all going to be trashed anyways, so what the heck?
Below is the finished product, ready to be wired in.
Now I don't have many pics of how it is all wired, but I will explain how it all happened in the next post..

DDR Pad Part 2

2008-03-19T15:40:00.000-04:00

After the stainless was cut down to size with tin snips, I clamped the wood and steel together and then bent down the steel with a rubber mallet. Before I bent the pieces, I had tacked the metal down to the wood with screws.
The finished pieces. The stainless I bought from the junkyard was PERFECT!
The rest of the pieces are now cut, and it's on to the polycarb pieces. Since everything was not perfectly aligned, I had to cut each arrow's panels slightly different to get them to the right size.
My first attempt at getting the trigger system down seem to not work out so well. The concept was right but the screw heads were in the way. Even with low profile heads it wasn't working. 4 ground tabs, 4 circuit tabs, one sheet on top to short them.
After much deliberation, I came up with a better way of doing the triggers. Take some galvanized steel and wirebrush it. I attached the steel to the base with servo tape and duct tape. The top received similar treatment. This allowed me to have a decent amount of clearance (around 3/16") to step down onto.

DDR Dance Pad Part 1

2008-03-10T23:38:00.000-04:00

I know what you're thinkin.. big tall Jon plays DDR? Sadly I've become addicted to it. It's good cardio for my tall ass, and the songs are catchy (Thank you Lynzi :-p) I run strictly Stepmania and run the core songs from all of DDR and ITG. I'm more of an ITG addict than DDR.

So what to use that isn't as crappy as a soft pad or those thick foam ones? Metal pads. BUT.. I'm a cheap college student. I can't afford a $200 pad. Plus, I love to make things :) It's REALLY EASY to build one of these pads that work just as well as the original arcade ones. All they are are really big momentary switches.

Here's the progress I've made so far:
I got this going based on what I've seen on these sites:
http://www.inventgeek.com/Projects/dancepad1/overview.aspx
http://www.digitaltorque.com/ddrpad/1_Tools_Materials.html
Arcade Style Dance Dance Revolution Metal Pad

The proverbial pile-o-parts:
Sheet of Pegboard (leftovers in our house)
(2) 1/2" sheets of 2' Square plywood (Home Depot)
(2) 1"x2"x6' pine strips (Home Depot)
1/8"x16"x6' Polycarb scrap (Junkyard)
0.030"x13x7' Stainless Sheet (Junkyard)
(16) 2" Corner Braces (Home Depot, and pricey lil bastards..)
A Gamestop brand Xbox soft pad (Cash Converters, dirt cheap)

The pad is the exact one depicted in the inventgeek link above. Speaking of which..
After 8 screws, the casing on the pad comes off, and you see how the board is attached to the pad. It's all weird thin contact pieces that just tape onto the board traces. Easily removable. In fact, the whole board is easy to take off. 2 screws, and some finger force on the molded plastic bits and it's out. Be sure to clean the black residue on the contacts before trying to solder.

Now that the board is removed, time to start working on the actual pad!
Here are the non-stepping pad pieces. They need to be cut to 10.875" (or 10 7/8"). These will be covered over top with the stainless steel.

I called it a night after this as I shopped in the morning and had other errands to run today. More to come!

The A/V PC

2008-03-04T15:57:00.001-05:00

Ah yes, how could I forget? The Media PC got done about late January and has been a useful tool until lately when the DVD software seems to have disappeared after I system restored the computer.. ugh! Here it is though:

Custom polycarbonate case with alum. joining bits. Added an LED fan for effect. Doesn't really need it...

Troubleshooting

2008-03-04T11:37:00.000-05:00

So recently, I bought Call of Duty 4 for my main PC after being obsessed with my roommate's copy for PS3. It was really nice the first week of play. After then, it started to give weird lag issues when playing online. Also, while this was going on, I realized that the CPU fan had been running full bore for no reason at idle. I thought the new front fan would fix that, but apparently it had nothing to do with this. So I plainly said fuck it, went out to computer wizards and tried to find something affordable that would work. For a few bucks more than I would have found something online, I found something that looked oddly familiar to the stock cpu fan from intel:

This "cheap looking" cpu fan cost about $28, but moves air around 50CFM! That's an incredible amount of airflow compared to what I was seeing online. Not only that, but it's damn near silent. Loudest it gets is 31dB. Keeps the inside temp around 42C at low speeds.

So what does CoD4 have to do with all of this?

When I put the new cpu fan on (plus a good amount of Arctic Silver) I also cleaned out the dust and reminded myself that the computer only likes RAM in pairs, so I took out the 3rd stick of Memory, dropping me back to 2GB, but making performance go back to the way it should be. Guess what? No more lagging, and smooth gameplay. I'll go find an extra 1GB stick and play it at 4GB real soon.

End result, I'm pleased :-D

Toys toys and more toys.

2008-01-18T13:36:00.000-05:00

W00tness! Xmas brought me a bunch of new computer parts:

Upgrades to the Micro-ATX:

New DVD drive to replace the one that crapped out on me already..
3GB of A-Data brand RAM complete with heatsinks.
White 80MM LED fan to help pull better airflow in.

Also, the parts came in for my new TV PC which will consist of:

Intel D201GLY2 mini-ITX Motherboard (1.3ghz Celeron)
1GB Buffalo RAM
80GB Western Digital Hard Drive
Lite-On DVD drive (for DVD movies)
Sparkle 200W slim PSU
Mercury TV Tuner Card

I've slowly been piecing together the new PC and should be done this weekend. Full Polycarbonate case with alum support blocks.

X-mas shopping

2007-12-24T20:32:00.000-05:00

So Trinity released some more stuff on clearance, and although I missed on the Trinity logo bags, I managed to score 3 Epic Motorsports Hauler bags at $18 a pop. Not too bad. That should get me by in terms of being portable with all my RC crap.

My dad got me one of those 2 channel micro helis for christmas. Managed to break the flybar and in term the main blade in 15 minutes.

Got some money as well, plus my best friend finished up my collection of Kevin Smith flicks on DVD. Post will be updated as more swag comes.

Goin Diggity?

2007-12-06T21:50:00.000-05:00

Thinkin about going with the Diggity Designs XR18 chassis for my RC18T. Still waiting to go brushless on it as well, but that should be ordered this weekend. I'm really stoked to get back to Kranzels in January to start prepping for 1/18 Nationals in April.

LG CU500 Hacks

2007-11-30T09:36:00.000-05:00

I obviously won't be able to take pictures of this, but I'll at least explain things the best I can. So about 2 months ago, I was swooned by the iPhone craze and after seeing my combat bot friend George Hotz unlock the first iPhone, it got me thinking about what I could do to my phone. I'm not ready to go knee deep and break the thing in half, but I wanted to see what type of movement there was for my fairly recent phone.

I have the LG CU500 flip phone, which boasts a nice 1.5 Megapixel cam (Can take up to 1280x960 resolution pics), bluetooth, and a basic mp3 player. Also it is one of the first phones from Cingular/AT&T that has 3G capabilities. 3G is their high speed data network. It's actually really good.

So what is there to modify?

Well, for one thing.. anytime I use a Java app such as Google Maps, Gmail, or Opera, it has a nagging question about permission rights. It becomes a PITA real quick. Also, I don't like some of the stock tones on the phone (whenever it completes anything, it has a lil happy tone).

So, I googled up a few things, and came across 2 relevant links:
http://comerford.cc/wordpress/lg-cu500-hacking-turn-off-confirmation-tones-and-more/
http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=981113&highlight=cu500

After buying an OEM data cable on ebay for a dollar and downloading BitPim, I was on my way to a better phone. I've modified the text message tones (can't be modified normally) so now I have all Simpsons style quotes. Currently I have Homer screaming about the Boogeyman. The Java nag has been removed as well. My phone is silent when confirming things as well. In the links there's a link to blank files to replace the confirmation tones.

It's a fairly easy to perform on your phone if you can pay attention. Otherwise your phone can essentially "brick".

Also, I haven't messed with it much, but dialing 277634#*# on the phone gets you the field service mode. Some nifty admin things that I'd prolly brick the phone if I messed with it.

Mini-Z club race rap-up

2007-11-28T23:29:00.000-05:00

Another sunday of Dorks On Wheels racing came to a close. This week was a special one however. I finally got my mod car!!! My good racing buddy (and fellow Kutztown local) Larry hooked me up with a new 02 chassis for cheap, and with some help from Ed (swapped boards, stock for mod) I got the car at least to the point where it was running.

I've sanded the differential down, re-lubed it and installed back on. The PN disc dampener is really slick. I also LOVE the power the Anima motor has.

What it still needs:

A good set of rims. The wheels that came with the Pan Car kit completely suck. I cracked one installing a bearing.
Speaking of bearings.. A full bearing set. I forgot that I'm out of bearings.
+1 and +2 Toe Out steering bars. Car definitely needs more steering, as it's constantly pushing no matter what spring I threw at it.
Possibly -1 Knuckles? Haven't decided yet.
PN Memory Antenna. I love the pink one I have on my stock car.

Speaking of my stock car.. I ended up smoking the board on sunday as well. Seems there was a short inside due to a cut in the insulation of the - side lead. Took out one of the 3010 FETs. I ended up running Ed's Enzo all day. I dropped out of the F1 class after the first heat cause it sucked at handling completely, and I wanted to spend time getting the Mod car ready. The F1's board has always been hokey.. It's like it has a natural 2-speed tranny on it. All of a sudden it kicks into high gear. I might try getting the FETs replaced.

Sooner or later I'll get a post up here of my Mods to my LG CU500 phone. That's all for now.

Introduction

2007-11-25T11:21:00.000-05:00

Hey guys, I finally decided to make a blog for all my tech stuff... cars, bots, gadgets in general. I'll be putting up a few things I've done already within the next few days. Stay tuned.