I did not have to look far because Windows 7 includes a handy “Create a system image” tool (under “Control Panel” > “Backup and Restore”). It even backs up while the system is in use (avoiding the need for downtime).

It did however take me 3 attempts to get right:

1. First tried saving an image of just the system partition (thinking I could just copy the data – on a separate partition easily enough manually) to a spare partition on that same drive. Did not work however as although I could save the image, I was unable to restore it (admittedly not ideal to save to the failing hard drive but would have saved finding another drive to use, and I had a separate backup already anyway for important files). When you try and restore, to a new drive however Windows assumes you want to restore to the existing drive, and will not let you select the new drive.
2. Second tried saving an image of the system partition to a spare partition on the new drive, again however this did not work because even if it is a separate partition (not the full drive) Windows will not allow you to restore from the same drive to itself.
3. Finally found another spare drive (large enough to take the complete system/data backup), saved the image to that, took out the old drive, replace it with the new, and then restored from the spare drive to the new drive.

Luckily throughout all 3 attempts (reading over/copying all data on the old hard drive reporting errors) it did not fail before I was able to complete the 3rd copy, and I was able to avoid reinstalling all programs.

We try to interview individuals in our industry that have experience and valuable insight to share with our community. We feel that you would be a perfect fit.

EEWeb Interview: Featured Engineer – Nicholas Skinner (photo from a ski trip)

Other interviewees include Limor Fried (Adafruit Industries), and Jeri Ellsworth (best known for creating a Commodore 64 emulator). See bottom of the page for full list of interviewees.

Skate Routes is designed for inline skaters in London to view the status (Pending/Go/Rained Off), and route maps for Friday/Sunday marshalled street skates organised by the LFNS (London Friday Night Skate), it also supports GPS/Compass based navigation.

http://www.ns-tech.co.uk/iphone/skate-routes/ [App Store]

After opening up the cable I noticed it used a “PL-2303HX” USB to serial chip. Searching Google appears it is made by Prolific. Unfortunately however the standard Prolific drivers do not work because the cable has a custom USB PID “1234″ instead of the standard Prolific PID of “2303″. Two possible solutions came to mind, either changing the chip back to the default PID such that Windows would recognise it as a standard Prolific serial adapter, or modifying the Windows driver to recognise the non standard Prolific PID.

I first tried reprogramming the chip. Appears it has been successful for someone using a T230 cable (EEPROM Writer link on that post is nolonger working however there is a copy at Megaupload via Jonathan Thomson’s Web Journal). I was however unable to get it to recognise the cable and looking on EDA Board appears a special “EEPROM programming cable” may be required.

I next tried modifying the Prolific driver, and was then able to install it however started getting a Windows error “This device cannot start” (and after rebooting I was unable to login – unplugging the USB adapter and rebooting again fixed the issue).

Next option I may try is either rewiring the adapter with another USB to serial chip that does have Windows 7 drivers or putting the SIM in a GSM modem / another phone that can be easily connected to a PC.

Parts were all from CCL for convenience as I was not placing the order myself, and they are competitively priced, however I have had a bad experience trying to return a faulty part to them a few years back.

I went with the following components:

Note: Cost excludes postage, I used some spare front and rear fans I already had.

I looked into various options such as services from AAISP who can deliver text messages to email, or a web form, which initially seemed perfect (they also have some good options for voice calls as well such as supporting multiple numbers on a single SIM both inbound and outbound, and VoIP termination) however then discovered that it is not possible to port a number to their service. I also found another similar company AQL who do support porting, but not for mobile numbers.

The option I came up with in the end to handle forwarding text messages was to write a C# application that can run on the PC desktop (in the task tray), connect to the phone over Bluetooth serial link (should also work with a regular serial / USB serial cable), poll it for unread text messages every few seconds, forward any found to a specified email address (which I can receive on my other phone), and delete them from the phone. Bluetooth is an ideal solution since it means the forwarding just works automatically whenever the phone is left at home by the computer.

Download: Source Code | Application

Notes:

• I was initially planning on using a Sony Ericsson DCU-11 sync cable however discovered it does not have any Windows 7 drivers available, and does not support charging.
• I found that Windows 7 by default did not seem to support connecting to my Sony Ericsson T610 over Bluetooth, therefore download the BlueSoleil Bluetooth stack which did.
• Application uses Stefan Mayr’s GSM library.

1. It is equipment using GSM, making use of various different phone networks, and cell towers that can not be easily replicated.
2. The issue only occurs on location in the field (i.e. live customers using the device).
3. It is an intermittent issue that can not be replicated on cue, ruling out simply going to the location for an hour setting up the relevant equipment and logging the issue.
4. Devices are in locations where it not particularly convenient / safe to setup and leave expensive testing equipment / laptops etc.
5. Testing equipment needs to run a Windows only application from a hardware manufacturer that needs “babysitting” (restarting if it stops logging).

I recently faced this issue. I tried a few options including blindly guessing at what the issue could be and implementing fixes for various possible issues, next tried working with the network operator (which got nowhere). Final solution I came up with was to build some custom / cheap (in comparison to the alternative) logging hardware to take the place of the hardware development board, Windows running laptop, hardware manufacturers software tool.

My first thoughts were that this could be done by using an Arduino with an SD Card data logging “shield” however after some further research I discovered the Spark Fun OpenLog. The OpenLog was a perfect fit since it:

1. Can be powered from 3.3V – 12V (could just piggy back it on the existing devices power supply).
2. Serial levels compatible with 2.8V CMOS levels of device.
3. Already setup to automatically log serial data to files on an SD Card.
4. Open source firmware that is freely available, meaning I could customise it to emulate the manufacturers software tool (eliminating the need for the extra hardware, and meaning I could deal with the reliability issues).
5. Development environment (see section “Compile Version 2″) that is simple / relatively straight forward to obtain / setup / use (Ardino IDE – even though it is not “Arduino” branded hardware as such).
6. Supports upto 16GB microSD cards (device outputs large logs).

There were a few steps involved in the process including, connecting the OpenLog to the device, building a programming cable for the OpenLog, and customising the OpenLog software to emulate the initialisation string of the Windows software tool.

I have never coded AVR C before however found it relatively straight forward to make the modifications I required to emulate the initialisation string of the Windows tool (primarily logging the string with Eltima Software’s Serial Port Monitor application, saving the data to a file on the SD Card and instructing OpenLog to read it back over the serial port, then drop back into logging mode.

A few issues I encountered along the way were:

1. OpenLog stops reading files if it encounters a NULL byte, however this should be fixed in the latest release.
2. Error trying to upload new software from the Arduino IDE to OpenLog due to the DTR pin needing to be connected to OpenLog to reset it just before programming. I substituted DTR for RTS (which my FTDI cable did have broken out).
3. Device I was logging data to was outputting [CTRL]+[Z] 3 times – the OpenLog escape sequence – I therefore modified the escape sequence to be 9 times rather than just 3.

Parst List

One Off

Per Logger

Build Instructions

Solder Headers

• Solder a x4 way header connector onto the logger GND, VCC, TXO, RXI (i.e. miss out the first pin labelled BLK, it is not required).
• Solder a x1 way header connector onto the logger for the GRN pin (I used a 2 way with the other pin overlapping off the end of the board as I could not easily obtain a 1 pin)
• Solder a x4 way housing connector onto the wires from the device (match up GND/VCC/TXO/RXI to appropriate pins on the device).

Note: A 5 or 6 way header soldered to all logger pins could just be used but I thought this approach best to avoid any mistakes (broken loggers) – that way there is a x4 way header to use when plugging into the printer and you are not left wondering which 4 pins should be connected.

FTDI Programming Cable

Modify the FTDI cable such that it has the following pinout (compatible with logger). Use a flat screw driver to release the pins from the existing socket.

Notes

• Arduino needs to be modified with a special version of HardwareSerial.cpp to work with OpenLog.
• If your SD Card did not come pre formatted you may need to use the FAT32 microSD optimised formatting tool from SD Association.

I went early morning and avoided the rain, was not too busy early on but became more crowded later on.

GPS Route Log:

View Larger Map

I was somewhat hoping the update would just appear on yum and happen automatically however looking into it I realise this was unlikely to happen:

Quote: “As with each other program in CentOS, the version numbers of released software will not change over the life time of a CentOS product.” — http://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/CentOS5

After Googling for a few options and not coming up with any I was particularly happy with (i.e. mostly using 3rd party repositories) I happened to run “yum list|grep php” and noticed a set of “php53*” packages. Appears it was decided at some point to make both versions of PHP available such that the user can choose which to install, but old installs would not be updated automatically to (most likely) limit the possibility of issues caused by incompatibilities.

I therefore ran the below commands and was upgraded to PHP 5.3 much quicker and with a lot less complication than I was expecting:

service httpd stop

service httpd start