the aj blog

Writing Code…

A while ago, I got used to and learned to like Eclipse Ganymede very well. It worked wonderfully. I’ve been using it for Java development ever since. I took on a project involving designing a game, one I had been hosting on Google Code because I’m all-Google and because it would make it easy to share with others and transition between workstations. A flash drive with eclipse, subclipse, and my SVN settings with password on it made it even easier, especially for the locked down ones I sometimes use. I had eclipse installed to the hard drive of my netbook, and launched it a couple days ago to fix an annoying code issue. It fails to launch. I try again. Fail. I look at the stack trace. It seems to suggest it needs JRE 1.5.xx? Wait, don’t I already…No!

Why It Happened

EDIT (6/3/2009): I had corrupted the install which was the real reason. An uninstall and reinstall worked fine.

I was using Chrome, my favorite browser, to view some pages when one of them turned out to require Java. I click the handy Install Plugin… button at the top. Fails because of lack of admin privileges. Makes sense, I try to make my regular users not admins. I download manually and proceed with install under “Run As…” It works! Finally! And then, it launches another install. Boom. Fail. The second part didn’t have my privileges. Boo hoo, it was some junk anyways. Reboot, Java works in Chrome and I can finally do what I needed. Eclipse doesn’t. I don’t think it was the mid-way fail that caused it, though. I think it’s because in order for it to work with Chrome it needs to install JRE 1.6 beta. Ganymede decides it doesn’t like beta. Ganymede die.

Urg

I spend over an hour looking for a JRE 1.5 revert download. Nothing…Nothing…Ooh, an uninstall script! Doesn’t work for 1.6.3, only 1.6.0 - 1.6.2. Wow. I can’t even get 1.5 from Sun or anyone else! They all want to give me 1.6 or tell me to shoo because I don’t know what I want. Too bad for them.

I’m stuck. I’m stuck with Java 1.6. Without a way to make code changes on this computer any more.

Morals of the story:

• Sun should let me think for myself
• Eclipse should permit running under 1.6
• Software downgrades should be lightly buried, not hidden in the earth’s core
• People should answer their phones and stop calling me back so I don’t have to put their voicemail on call waiting
• I should think before installing a beta JRE
• I should finish the part of the game permitting others in my group to write the levels for me! That way I only need concentrate on gravity, collisions, loading, sound, the real fundamentals. They go be the expressive creative ones. Not me. I stink at that.

I’m Back - Sort Of…

I’ve been very busy with other preoccupying tasks in my life. This post is only to help you with any iTouch YouTube issues and to help you not waste hours into early dawn searching through 3-year old dead links from dying forums. I am not technically “back.” Oh, and keep in mind I’m tired because it’s kinda late (in my time zone, not the blog’s) and my writing won’t be top notch. Finally, check out winintosh.com, a friend’s website who I helped get up and running and am basically a co-founder. More on that later?

Jailbreak

You’ve heard of it and maybe wanted to do it. For those that don’t know, it will also break YouTube with the error that it can’t connect. I searched the Internet and did some other things in an effort to fix it, which I describe below:

Attempt 1

I ssh’d into the Touch and overwrote some files with some functioning iPhone firmware. Oops! Plugged into iTunes, refuses to sync (and thinks it is now a bricked iPhone). Restored the overwritten files and on to next attempt.

Attempt 2

I ssh’d into the Touch and renamed Lockdown to Lockdownblah. Then I mozied around and tried YouTube, which didn’t work. Restarted and tried final attempt.

Attempt 3

I had installed OpenSSH and Terminal a while ago on my iPod. Open Terminal, ssh root@127.0.0.1, give it root and default password alpine and I’m in. Next,

cd Library
mv Lockdown Lockdown.old
exit

But here comes the important part. I held the power button in and slid the bar to shut down. I turned it back on, and it came into Recovery Mode which iTunes refused to dock with because it required a lock code. I can’t unlock it until I connect it to iTunes which I can’t do until I unlock it…Right… So, what’s there left to do? Fix it. SSH from my computer into the Touch (PuTTY, same settings as before) and issue these commands:

cd Library
mv Lockdown Lockdownold2
mv Lockdownold Lockdown
exit


I truly don’t know why after getting rid of Lockdown and then putting it back (the old one) it suddenly worked. Anyways, feel free to try this AFTER BACKING UP! Lol, don’t make the mistake of screwing it up out of warranty and having no backup.

The Weller Portasol is a piezo-ignition, butane powered, portable soldering iron.

Why Butane?

The main choice of a butane soldering iron over a standard electric one would probably be somehow related to portability. A bottle/internal container of butane is portable, your house’s electrical system is not. I also noticed it has a much greater range of heat than my ~$20 Radioshack model, and they’re almost the same price. The butane iron claims it can go “from 25 watts to 75 watts!” which is adjusted with a discrete knob controlling the amount of butane that flows. It can get very hot. The ignition system is piezo based, much like a spark plug in my opinion.

Exhaust

The “exhaust” from this thing is also very hot. The combustion is very complete, with very little smoke from the butane its self. What I mean is the very hot stream of air that comes out of the side of the tip. You truly need to be careful with it, when I was working on the hacked amplifier, I burnt and deformed the plastic case with it. Then, intentionally, I used the heat on part of Project SteaDIY to melt a skate bearing into some PVC (coming soon). It hurts. It will char paper.

Summary

This is great if you’re travelling (although not permitted on air), and is very easily refillable with a standard butane lighter refill. It heats up to temperature in about 10 seconds, and I sometimes even just use it for convenience when I could have access to a corded iron. Just plain awesome, and about $30 after discounts on Amazon.

The new foam waterbottle handle combined with a skate bearing and bolted to the plate.

The Handle

On the weekend, I made a much easier to hold handle out of one of the most commonly found household items: a water bottle. Combine (more specifically, inject) that with the slightly less common Great Stuff expanding foam and you’ve got a handle. The foam is very light, extremely sticky, expands, and makes the handle firm without adding much weight. Originally intended for sealing gaps, it’s wonderful for many other projects where a carvable, lightweight plastic foam is needed. Since it’s sticky, you can also use it for a kind of flexible glue at the same time. Best of all, one can runs at only about $5.

Skate Bearing Stabilization

After being inspired by both the concept, content, and music of this awesome YouTube video, I went out and bought a box of skate bearings from a specialty skateboard shop in town. I got 8 “precision, high quality, china-manufactured to our specifications, ultra-performance” skate bearings for $16. Not bad considering ordering just one online at $.60 each would incur $10 shipping. I went about looking for something the bearing would fit into, which is when I noticed it nearly fit the water bottle. But it didn’t. What do you do when something doesn’t fit? Make it fit. A couple seconds with a lighter warped the plastic enough to jam the bearing in, already attached to a bolt. In this configuration, the bearing now provides rotational stability. What it needs now is the gimbal configuration to give it full three dimensional (rotation, x, and y) stability. Also from the same video I learned one method was to use Traxxas replacement part #1951. Off to Google I go. A quick Shopping search for “traxxas 1951″ proved it to be around $5. Five seems to be rather magical today. Then I got obsessive, comparing retailers not against product price but against total price after tax/shipping. I settled with A Main Hobbies, saving a buck or two and wasting 10 minutes. Based in California, it’ll probably arrive by Friday. How is a modal car part going to solve anything? There are two plastic and two aluminum shafts (I think) that come in the package, along with four “metal universal joints”. The joints look almost like jacks. Pop one into the two holes on the shaft, and connect it to another shaft. Then, they’ll turn on both x and y axis. Gimbal! Hack into submission and enjoy!

By attaching a strong magnet to both sides of a finger, you can then feel electromagnetic radiation.

About a “6th Sense”

This has been done for quite a while now actually. With today’s technology, it can be simple to give yourself unnatural and really cool new senses. One of the extra senses commonly added is magnetism. This can be acheived usually by implanting a small neodymium (rare earth) magnet capsule in one’s finger. If you followed implanted people’s descriptions, like that from iatrogenic.cx, you would know how some implants end up, sooner or later, in an infection, or another problem ensues. It’s invasive. There’s no anesthesia, as it’s done by a body modification specialist. When you encounter a magnetic field, the implant would pull slightly outwards, triggering nerves that you can feel as a slight tugging on the finger. By using this method I discovered, you can less accurately but completely noninvasively feel magnetic fields. It’s very simple and costs less than $5.

Let’s Start!

First of all, we need small button magnets. The easiest place I’ve found to get them is at Michaels, strangely. The closest online listing I was able to find wasn’t the ones you need, but it’s close, ProMAG brand. The actual ones are smaller, come 6 to a package, and are probably available in store. Just take two out of the package, and put one on each side of the desired finger. It’s really that simple.

Good Magnetic Fields

You can find magnetic fields in many places. Power supplies are especially good. Their transformers work as large antennas and can be felt. What’s the best are, occasionally, security systems, and always, electric motors. Putting your new magnetic finger near a fan, pencil sharpener, or other motor and feel the vibration, without contact. Too cool!

What It Is

I had an interesting idea, to measure and compare response times after various amounts of sleep. I was going to test after 8, 5 and 10 hours of sleep. You already saw my earlier posts about the tester its self, but some of the results are in. There are, indeed, too many variables such as unregulated heating, ambient light, actual sleeping time, and age. However, this does show a pretty defined pattern in the times.

What It Is Not

This is not a clinical or even particularly scientific study. All results should be handled with the assumption that I, a human, probably made some errors, but not significant to the outcome. It’s not done either, I’ve only done 2 of the 3 days so far.

The Raw Numbers

They’re going to be right below here, in a table for your convenience:

Interesting Notes

As many probably know, we don’t always think straight when we’re asleep. As a matter of fact, after taking the first test, I needed something to record it. Rather than go for the nice pen in front of my, I pulled a pencil from its tennis ball holder and tried to write. It wasn’t sharpened. Still sleepy, I grabbed my X-Acto knife and in a couple seconds whittled a tip from the stub. I guess I partly overlooked the pen, and subconsciously always had wanted to sharpen a pencil like that. I was definitely more tired on the days I slept less.

The Part-Way Conclusion

So far, we can take a peek at the data and try and conclude something. After 5 hours, my times got consistently worse over time? As a friend pointed out, perhaps since my body wanted more sleep, it was getting drowsier in an effort to achieve its goal? Anyways, the biggest point so far involves some extrapolation. The average of all the first day’s times is ~31 milliseconds. The average of all the second day’s times is ~61! By skipping those three hours of sleep, your response times are almost slowed 2x, at least for the first 10 minutes. Wow.

Although this may be an obvious bug to many, I just discovered it, almost accidentally. Turns out using “Send As” does not effectively block your gmail identity. Some services such as Yahoo! Groups, for example, check more headers than just the from. Although the from header will show up as the identity you wish, a sender header is added that states your Gmail address. For example, a message I sent distantly ended up with headers like this:

From: "My Fake Name" <myfakeaddress@yahoo.com>

Sender: mygmailaccount@gmail.com

Note the sender header. I can only give a good guess at the reason. Personally, I think it’s to prevent spam, taking over to world, etcetera, but how’s that make sense? If you feel like there’s a reason I didn’t mention (anything better, really), and you’re one of the few to read this blog, feel free to comment.

Yep, you heard that right. I really only tried it to make sure I wasn’t allergic to the latex I was going to use. Fortunately, I’m not, and I took a creepy photo of what the arm looked like. It’s not quite a zombie, but more of just a shredded, bashed up arm.

Liquid Latex + Toilet Paper + Red Makeup = Zombie Arm

A cheap cable and the open-source software BitPim can be extremely helpful for anybody that’s unwilling to pay for ringtones, through a service such as Verizon’s Get it Now, or spending money picture messaging MIDI files to yourself, or for any other reason.

Materials you’ll need:

• A USB to Samsung phone cable. OEM or an aftermarket cable is fine. Mine was from eBay, 99 cents with $7 shipping. Just bid with caution. Or, I guess, you could buy one on Amazon too.
• The latest version of BitPim that will be used to manipulate the filesystem.
• A computer (I am very, very sorry for anyone that didn’t know that).

Step 0

• A disclaimer, before anything else. By reading the rest of this article, you assume all responsibility in modifying your phone. This is by no means an official guide (but hopefully a decent one) and it’s honestly not my problem if this article leaves you with a hundred buck paperweight aka brick. If you don’t feel up to moving around the filesystem, try Bruce’s method in the comments (thanks!).
• Install BitPim by downloading and simply running the installer.

Step 1

• Connect the USB end of the cable to the USB port in your computer, and the proprietary Samsung end to your phone’s port. In electronics, NEVER EVER force anything if it won’t fit. Around 98% of the time, doing so will result in a broken device.

Step 2

• Add your file to the phone’s filesystem. In BitPim, to see the filesystem, you may have to enable viewing it first. View -> View Filesystem should do it. Your file should be either a MIDI or MP3, although MP3s are larger in size and therefore you can fit less on your phone, and they’ll take longer to upload. Click your way down the filesystem to “/brew/mod/” and click on “mr.” Some files might show up in the right hand box, but maybe not. Either way, right click on the box and Offline Phone to protect it from messing up the operation and damaging your phone. Even further, right click on anything in the tree and select Backup entire tree … saving the zip somewhere you’ll remember in case you need to restore your phone. Then, right click again and select New File… then navigate to your ringtone. Don’t have one? On Windows machines, try looking in C:\Windows\Media\ for .mid files. Press OK, and give it some time. Once it says the status is “Ready”, right click and Reboot Phone.

Step 3

• The real trick is getting the phone to RECOGNIZE the ringtone. Once you get back to the same screen of the /ff/brew/mod/mr directory, right click -> Save the file MrInfo.db somewhere easily accessible, like your desktop. Open it up with notepad or your favorite plain text editor, and it will probably look something like this: /brew/mod/mr/town.mp3|0|0 that is, if your ringtone was named “town.mp3″. After each filename is a pipe character (|), a number, another pipe, and another number. For the new files, it will be 0 and 0. For a ringtone, the first number should be 0 and the second should be 3. So select just the second 0 and type “3″. Save your file, and back in BitPim, right click -> Overwrite on MrInfo.db, then select where you saved your edited version of it. Right click -> Reboot Phone/power cycle, and don’t worry if Windows machines exclaim that “A USB device has malfunctioned!” It’s just some cheap cables and their sneaky USB tricks. Just hope the cable doesn’t short into a cloud of smoke (I’ve known a few devices to do that…), and you’re good!

On this day, August 20, the aj software blog is officially launching! Yaaaay!

Things to expect:

• Detailed articles about what I’ve been messing around with
• Occasionally random things I’ve discovered  that I just HAVE to say
• Sometimes, just sometimes, a Jott about something short. (Jott’s going to start charging soon. Waah)
  
• Software, every now and then. Some will be small web apps, others Visual Basic, and other yet just in random languages I’ve been learning.

Things not to expect:

• Updates as frequent as the NY Times
• The world’s largest waffle iron in my backyard
• My identity. I am anonymous.