Nicholas Skinner

Discovered two useful tricks recently, one for Thunderbird and one for Firefox:

Thunderbird: If you are using IMAP, messages may take a few seconds to appear, which if you frequently look back through old messages, sent messages, or just keep messages in the inbox to be dealt with at a later time can unnecessarily slow down the process.  Enabling offline use for your folders (“Tools” > “Account Settings” > “Offline & Disc Space” > “Select folders for offline use”) means that after an email has been viewed once, Thunderbird will keep it cached on the local hard drive meaning that pulling up that same messages again will be much quicker.

Firefox: If you have multiple e.g. Google Mail accounts, and would rather not keep signing into / out of each, or would like to have multiple accounts open at once you can use Firefox profiles.  Each profile is completely separate (bookmarks, cookies, etc).  This is also useful if you have multiple clients, you can create a separate profile for each and therefore avoid the need to keep logging in and out of e.g. Google Analytics and any other web services for each.

Close all existing Firefox windows, and launch Firefox with the “-ProfileManager” argument.  This can be done on Windows by pasting “firefox -ProfileManager” into “Start” > “Run”.  Then create all the profiles you need.  After you have created the profiles, create separate shortcuts to launch each by first copying  your existing Firefox shortcut from the start menu, and then editing it (right click, “Properties”) and adding -no-remote –P “ProfileName” to the end of the “Target” box for each profile you created.  Then simply double click each created shortcut to open a new Firefox browser window with that profile. Further information can be found at mozillaZine: Command line arguments.

I have been trying to get a level converter working with the GM862-GPS for a while now and finally managed it the other day.

Initially purchased a converter from BitBox however failed to appreciate that it required a power source matching the voltage of the levels on the GM862-GPS. Therefore purchased a 3.3V another one from SK Pang Electronics. It is USB powered which simplifies things, also despite the name after reading the data sheet I determined that it was actually compatible with the 2.8V CMOS levels on the GM862-GPS.

Launched a new site today TModSoft (Telit Module Software) which encompasses two previous products I have worked on, the SMS Printer, and Parallel Track, in addition to showcasing some new products including an RS232 Serial to GPRS Gateway, GPIO SMS Remote Control and Monitoring software, Geo-Fence SMS Vehicle Tracking and Cell ID Collection software.

Software runs on the relatively easily available EZ10, EZ10-GPS, EZ83, EZ863-GPS pre boxed hardware along with the Telit Modules (GM863-GPS, GE863-GPS etc).

I purchased a Panasonic DMR-ES20D DVD recorder more than a year ago to replace an old video recorder that I was using. After purchasing it there were 3 main features that I would have liked it to have, and it turned out they were there all along just poorly documented.

1. Recording analogue TV (as well as Freeview channels).
2. Ability to watch recorded shows straight on the PC without having to finalise the disk (which previously meant possibly wasting upto 3hrs of unused space).
3. Ability to effectively pause live TV (i.e. record and playback the same show).

I only discovered recording analogue TV was possible after it auto-tuned some in some analogue channels after popping up an onscreen message saying that there were new channels available.

Regarding watching shows without finalising the disk, and pausing live TV, I was using it with standard DVD+R write once disks, meaning these features just did no show up (you need to use special DVD-RAM disks).

Added an SMS via GSM modem PHP class to the resources page. Allows sending of an SMS message using PHP via a GSM modem plugged into the computers serial port. Code is Windows only, and has been tested on the EZ863 (Telit GE863) GSM modem.

Update: If this code does not work for you I would suggest looking into either Serproxy “a multi-threaded proxy program for redirecting network socket connections to/from serial links” or PHP serial extension “a loadable extension for PHP running on Windows implementing serial port handling and communications”.

Around Eltham and surrounding areas by Bike 1

Widget powered by EveryTrail: Share and Plan your Trips

Around Eltham and surrounding areas by Bike 2

Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS Trail Maps

Just launched a new product, SMS Printer is a small portable standalone device for receiving and printing text messages. Already have one custom who has ordered 10 and is planning on using it to dispatch food orders to restaurants. It is also suitable for any other situation where the ability to receive a text message in a simple and easy way is required.

Just had a Windows XP PC that is a few years old fail to boot up reporting a corrupt hal.dll file. I followed the instructions on About.com for restoring the hal.dll file from the Windows XP CD however got a permissions error.

Suspecting that there was something more wrong than just a corrupt file I took out the hard drive and plugged it into another Windows XP based system via a USB to IDE adapter in an attempt to copy off the data. The hard drive came up however attempting to open it locked up Windows Explorer. I therefore tried plugging the USB to IDE adapter into a MacBook Pro and after spending some time thinking about it the drive came up, and I was able to copy off all but one file from the “My Documents” folder (accessing this one particular file or other specific system files caused finder to momentarily lock up and the drive to make some odd noises).

BT launched a service it called Web21C SDK around 18 months ago. It offered a number of useful features for developers including location services (cell triangulation on receipt of a text message), inbound/outbound SMS, and the ability to initiate voice/conference calls between parties.

These services were not particularly innovative, as various companies offer SMS services, and the free Asterisk PBX software allows you to do almost anything you need on the voice side of things however what I found attractive about the BT offering was the ease of use for the developer (SDKs for various languages were provided), and straight forward per call rather than per minute charging model.

Shortly after finding out about the service I developed two main applications using it. The first linked in with an existing back office diary / calendar / contacts system via SMS enabling lookup of contact information, initiating voice calls, retrieving the days events, adding events, and sending out reminders on those events. The second was a calling card type service I named Talk59 which allowed you to enter your number, and the calling parties number, it would then call both parties and connect them together for a fixed cost per call with a time limit of 59 minutes.

Even though I did very little in terms of promotion the site was starting to see a reasonable amount of use, particularly with those in India and Australia. On the 25th of September however BT suddenly sent out an email announcing the service would be suspended on the 10th of October. The fact they only gave 15 days notice while within their rights left myself and others very little time to consider our options for switching to an alternate supplier, and ultimately I decided to discontinue Talk59. Evidently the same decision Fizzcall (who offered a similar service) also came to “You may have noticed that today we suspended purchases and sign-ups on the Fizzcall website”.

Allong with the initial email, BT pitched Ribbit (the company it recently acquired / the reason it is discontinuing Web21C SDK) as a suitable replacement, however after spending some time looking into it as far as I can see Ribbit is primarily aimed at Flash uses, and does not even connect calls to the UK. I am now left trying to claim back credits purchased for Web21C SDK which I can longer spend. For this reason I am left distinctly unimpressed with BT.

I was recently asked to assist in taking a “professional looking” photograph of a handmade piece of furniture.  Since an situ photograph was not possible it was decided to use a Chromakey blue piece of fabric which would be replaced by a solid colour background in Photoshop CS2.

For the first few attempts we did not pay any attention to lighting. The result was that the blue fabric could not be easily fully removed in Photoshop, as the dark shadows meant the blue turned to black.  We then tried number of things to remove the shadows however not having any kind of professional lighting equipment this was not possible in the room we were using.

In the end the unexpected solution was to remove nearly all light from the room, and then just set a long exposure time. This resulted in no major shadows, and therefore a consistently coloured blue background that could easily be removed.

To remove the background in Photoshop I used the “Color Range” tool with ~100 “fuzziness” clicking multiple times in different areas of blue in the picture.

After manually removing an unfortunate reflection in the glass on top, then adding a 2 pixel feather the end result came out looking very respectable / much better than I had been expecting.