Fighting with computers

I've upgraded my main desktop machine to Ubuntu 9.10 and one of things I need to get going is VMware's VM Player. I've been pleasantly surprised to discover that the new 3.0.0 version of wmplayer does include a new feature to create new virtual machines. While I had no complaint using easyVMX site I am extremely happy of having this new feature, previously only available on VMware Workstation product. So, thanks a lot VMware.

Next week, Richard Stallman will give a talk at UPV campus (Conference Hall at building 1H ) on Thursday February 4th, at 5:00pm. Richard has already visited UPV before and can speak Spanish, so I guess that is what he'll use. His views about the software development and ethics are all but conventional. But now that the free sofware concepts have spread open wide many people share many of his points of view. Not sure, however, if Richard still thinks the Copyright Levy (canon digital) we have in Spain now is fare.

Heating and air conditioning are the cause of much trouble on campus. Yesterday I was asked to make a decission as it was believed one of our buildings was too hot because of the sun. But, as I'd like to make my decissions based on facts I decided to setup a temperature logger. As heating is off on Sunday (but Sun is only off at night) I'll be able to compare the temperature profile of Sunday against all the other days when the heating is on. Unfortunately no data logger was available so I set up my own one using three simple elements: An arduino board (actually it was an iDuino I had lying around) a Dallas Semiconductor (actually now part of Maxim IC) DS18B20 digital temperature sensor and a PC. I adapted some code I borrowed from Nuelectronics to read the temperature and I transimted to the PC over the serial port. On the PC side (my office PC is running Windows) I had to program it using VisualStudio, so I created a simple VisualBasic program , whose only purpose is to add...

During the last holidays I've been playing with a new Linux board that I've found quite interesting. It is an open project developed by a Spanish company which in turn enriched the Beagle Board idea with a lot of cool hardware: wifi, Ethernet, Bluetooh, RS-485, LCD controller, etc. They both share many other interesting peripherals as 3D accelerated graphics board featuring HDMI output, microSD memory socket, audio I/O and DSP,USB port, JTAG port etc. The so called IGEPv2 (not sure it is a good name as I find it quite difficult to remember, maybe I'm aging) is a cool piece of hardware that comes with a Linux distribution name Poky and it based on an ARM Cortex-M8 processor running at 720Mhz that needs less than 3 watts for the whole system. It can run Ubuntu and many other ARM-based Linux distros. And it costs 140 Euros, which I reckon it is a sweet price. Put it together with a large HD display and you have a point of information for the public. You may even hide the car...

It seems you can pre-order an International version of Kindle DX from Amazon. Same price as US version. In another front there seems to be more players to the "larger" ebook format, the Skiff and the QUE showing off. But, while some demo new ideas , it seems Apple is about to surprise us (ok, maybe not) with a real device by the end of the month.

This year has been an exciting one on the technology side but it is been a crappy year for most economies of the world. I keep my fingers crossed for a better 2010 on all fronts. As you can see in the picture of the right, the Kindle DX has an annoying "feature" of showing the full media box of PDF files instead of the crop box. That means you have to recreate the PDF file if you want to get rid of these elements only useful for the print house. The problem they create is that some of the screen real state is wasted on them, making the rest of the page smaller. My verdict about Kindle DX screen size is that it is too small for viewing A4 or US letter PDF documents comfortably but most PDF formatted books will be ok tough. January issue of Circuit Cellar magazine will carry an article I authored. It is an Arduino-based project for a three axis stepper motor PC interface. Please note simultaneous use of several axis was not desired nor implemented. Popular stepper motor drivi...

Latest development system for Texas Instruments "wireless" micro-controller comes in the form of a watch. Yes, a regular watch that can track several variables besides the time passing. Besides the watch, the kit includes an USB RF interface and a USB emulator for software debugging. The watch itself includes a 3-axis accelerometer together with temperature, pressure and battery-level measurements. At $49 it is a steal. No wonder they are out of stock. There is a wiki too.

I've recently bought a sonar circuit for distance and temperature measurements. Actually you need to know the temperature if you want to get an accurate distance measurement as it affects sound's propagation speed. Less than $20 shipped, the URM37 unit is compact and full of interesting features: It has a dual interface as it can use RS-232 levels or TTL levels. Be careful because it defaults to RS-232 and these voltage levels can damage many 5V devices, including Arduino inputs. It has several operating modes but I've used the serial interface. URM37 library comes with a modified software serial port library that allows you not to use any two available digital pins to interface with the sensor. This way arduino hardware serial port is free to be used for code uploading. Another cool feature of the sensor is that it can control a RC servo so you can mount the sensor in a mobile platform to get the distance measurement at different angles.

I've been granted an Excellence in Teaching award from the local government. Among other things lecturing in English (or other foreign languages) and having high-marks on student surveys of teaching were topics assessed. Now it is time to look around and thank all the people that made this possible: from my colleagues who share an interest on teaching to my students who keep on asking questions. From all of them I learn a lot every day. I'm also grateful for my University and government that through various programs have supported different visits and stays at foreign universities. And last, but not least, to my dear family and friends who have always been there for me. For all of these I'm grateful.

The first thing is why in hell you may want to do this? Or even what the hell is this usb networking thing? The thing is that those who are outside of coverage of Whispernet wireless network cannot get some of the Kindle features to work. But even if you enable usb networking you are not getting back 100% of the functionality. Let me tell you some of the things I've learned: Apparently Amazon will send you a client digital certificate to your Kindle through Whispernet (and only that way), so future orders from you Kindle can be properly authenticated as yours (so you cannot refuse payment I guess, among other things). That means that even if you get your Kindle to access the Internet (ie enabling USB networking) you won't be able to register it to your account (though no error message is presented to the user). So what USB networking can serve for? Well, enabling USB networking allows you to connect to the Kindle as a network device and to access its Linux system for doing chan...

Though it's been one of the most difficult items to buy, I finally manage to get my Kindle DX. In a previous post I detailed the different failed attempts, but finally at the third one I've got my Kindle DX delivered. Incidentally I discovered that my first buy from Amazon was stolen and being already used in USA. How did I learn that? Easier than you may think: When you buy a Kindle form Amazon (unless it is a gift for another person) it is registered automatically to you account. Next you can manage your Kindle from Amazon's website. One of the things you can do is to check the status of the documents that have been delivered through Whispernet and those that are still pending. There is a default "Thank you letter" that is delivered to each customer. As Amazon sent me two Kindles (first shipment was lost, replacement shipment arrived) I had got two Kindles registered on my account. Each one had different email address and to my surprise I could see that that the...

I was recently moving data from a Postgresql version 8.0 database to a 8.4 on a new server. The database dump was made on a UTF-8 system and it was moved to another system using the same encoding. However I was getting some errors when trying to recover the data. Several encoding errors where poping out. A closer inspection revealed that those were indeed a few encoding-rule violations. For some odd reason some data fields ended up with bad data, some double-byte characters had the first byte missing (it was 0xc2 in my case). I solved the problem creating a small filter program to add the missing byte of these characters from the database dump. Not very nice but it worked. Why the problem developed in the first place I do not know. #include <stdio.h> main() { int a,c; while((c=getchar())!= EOF) { if(c>0xe0) continue; if(c>0xc0) { a=getchar(); if(a>0x7f) putchar(c); putchar(a); } else if(c } return(0); }

From Wikipedia: Patience is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances, which can mean persevering in the face of delay or provocation without becoming annoyed or upset; or exhibiting forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties. When the delivery deadline was reached without getting my Kindle DX I was told to call Kindle Customer Support. Though I've insisted I was abroad I was given no other option that to get a refund. Three calls later, and three extra waiting days, I was "rewarded" by a new shipment, this time One-Day Shipping at no extra cost from Amazon. I still do not want to start dancing till I get it home. However I hope this time delivery will happen (if not, I will find out quickly). I am really happy I could use Skype to call Kindle Customer Support 800 line. If not it would have become an expensive enterprise as it took me more than half an hour at the phone to get this result. In fact, last Friday I was told...

Apparently I'm out of luck. Last Nov 8th I ordered a Kindle DX from one Amazon's associate. It was shipped Nov 10th and that's all I know since. As the estimated delivery date passed a few days ago I contacted customer service and I was asked to wait a few more days and then to claim for a refund. As this is my second unsuccessful attempt of buying a Kindle DX, though I have not yet got the refund of my first attempt (still sitting there on my PayPal account) I reckon there is not going to be a third attempt. Whether there is some black magic involved or not I do not know. When I tasked myself with buying a Kindle DX I was not aware it would be so difficult. Last time I could blame eBay seller, but this time I was buying from an Amazon associate ( Warehouse Deals ). I'm not buying a DR1000S as battery issues render it almost useless. Something that for a device costing double than a Kindle DX I cannot accept. So maybe I'll wait to see what Plastic Logic delivers in...

I'm disappointed Amazon is not yet offering an International version of Kindle DX. I'm disappointed Plastic Logic is not delivering a product, just the name (QUE) is not enough to me. So I decided to get a U.S. Kindle DX and, as Amazon is not selling it overseas I thought eBay was a good place to get one. After a few days I saw that, from time to time, some sellers offered refurbished units. I read good comments on Mobileread.com and Lectoreselectronicos.com about refurbished units (i.e. look brand new, 18% off) for $399 so I was sold. I bought one DX from a seller named iRebates after contacting with a previous buyer who have had a good experience and was based in Spain too. That seller had a good reputation with more than three thousand successful transactions. It all looked ok. So I shelled out the dough and sat down and waited. And then waited a bit more and essentially nothing else happened. Three days later I asked the seller about my shipment. I was told it had not happ...

It's been reported that many geeks are developing a kind of itch associated with visits to the Apple store. Unfortunately I went to a local dealer last week and I've catch it. The only cure I've found is to just go and buy a new 27" iMac. While the display is awesome (I've got 17" before), I'm quite impressed with the new mouse. I really like it. If mouse battery usage is ok or not I can't tell yet. Display works great even angled. Sound is ok. Desktop is tidier now. Only doubt is USB access, as being in the back I have a difficult access to it (but I might be moving to SD format instead for easier access to the slot). I just hope I won't be reporting soon any trouble the system is giving me (as it has happened to me in the past). Please remember I've warned you: Do not get close to an Apple shop! Update: I have had this problem with my MBP before and it is one annoying error when using the shell in Snow Leopard. Every type your write a pipe,...

I do love Inkscape program. However, there is one thing it is still missing (it's not the program's fault though), the ability to handle more than one page documents. I recently was producing some drawings at work and I wanted to make a single document package with all the drawings to be emailed to my colleagues. As I can produce PDF output from Inkscape, I searched for easy ways to merge several PDF files. I do know Adobe's Acrobat can do that , but I was looking for a cheaper alternative. I learned that you can use command-line ghostscript to get this done (provided you have it installed) easily. gs -sPAPERSIZE=a4 -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=outfile.pdf inputfile1.pdf ... inputfileN.pdf I learned too that it can be done online, in fact there are several sites ( mergepdf , joinpdf ) you can use. Though there are certain limitations (encrypted PDF files are a no go), it seems I no longer have to worry about creating multipage PDF easily (of course it w...

One of the cool features about some VMware products is that they are free. Both VMware Server and ESXi are free virtualization platforms. The main difference is that while VMware server is running on top of your computer operating system, ESXi is a thin software layer running over your hardware. That saves important resources that can be better used by the virtual machines you want to run on top. ESXi only uses 32MB of RAM. You can watch this presentation about ESXi. The main problem I've got at the moment to get ESXi tested is that I need to buy a SATA disk as PATA is not supported.

I've just read today on Amazon.com website a Jeff Bezos letter announcing the availability of Kindle for customers outside U.S . Of course this also means that wireless access is going to work in your country. I'd be buying one now if DX was available. Unfortunately only 6" Kindle is offered at the moment. However I guess they will be adding DX soon. Update: There are a few things that do not add up well. Kindles are only sold from U.S. at the moment. That means you have to pay customs, plus overseas shipping plus an slightly more expensive version of Kindle. Another source of trouble is that Wireless acccess to Wikipedia from Kindle International has "experimental" status, whatever that means. It is not so with US Kindle. And to me, wireless free access to Wikipedia is well worth a price premium. But ... if Wikipedia access is dropped then I do not see enough value on the wireless delivery of paid content.

There are many ways to measure the "output" of a researcher. It is likely there are many ways to measure it because none of them is right for all the cases. While many consider citations of a paper as some type of endorsement of other person's work, there many ways to turn that into numbers. And we want numbers so we can compare performance easily. I was asked the other day to provide my H-index . Problem was I have never heard about it before (only my fault). Just a wikipedia query later it turned out the idea was quite simple. H-index was proposed by Jorge E. Hirsch from UCSD and it is sometimes called Hirsch index or Hirsch number too. This is how it is obtained: Take your publications list and sort it by the number of citations. Now start counting papers from the top (most cited paper) and continue down till the number of citations is lower than the count of papers. The current count (or one less) is your H-index. So an H-index of, let's say, ten means that person...