DIY Sun jar/ Mood Light

I was inspired by this instructable to make my own sun jar.

total cost was about $10.

• Solar light
• Flashing tri color LED
• Rechargable batteries
• Glass pebbles and jar from Walmart

Here are some photos

Before assembly.	Close up of the solar light.
All assembled.	View of the jar/lamp in action.

How to Install AmazonMP3 on 64-Bit Xubuntu

1. Download the Amazon MP3 installer from here.

2. Force install the package using this command
sudo dpkg -i –force-architecture amazonmp3.deb

If steps 3 and 4 are not followed then you might get the following error

“amazonmp3: error while loading shared libraries: libgtkmm-2.4.so.1: cannot open
shared object file: No such file or directory”

3. Download the getlibs package and install the package using this command
sudo dpkg -i getlibs-all.deb

4. Install the 32 bit libraries required by amazon MP3 by typing this command
sudo getlibs /usr/bin/amazonmp3

you can now start the program by typing amazonmp3 in a console window or start the program from Applications > network > Amazon Mp3 Downloader.

DIY speaker stand

I came across this article on Make today about a speaker stand made out of these really cheap torchiere  lamps available from Walmart, Funny coincidence was that I had the same kind of idea a couple of months ago. I just removed the lamp holder and the wires as well as the plastic lamp shade. I also shortened the total height of the lamp by about a foot by removing one of the pipes. Here is  my version of the speaker stand.

The Finished speaker stand

close up of the speakers

The lamp has a very sturdy base

The total cost for this project  was about $24. the cheapest speaker stands on Amazon is about $33 and they are quite flimsy.

Looks like walmart wised up and has discontinued the model of the lamp that I used. You can still use a model similar to this which is available at walmart (brick-and-mortar) stores for about $14.

Update: DD-WRT on a belkin F5d7230-4 v2000

Tried installing DD-WRT on the Belkin router again last week and I finally got it working. here is how you do it.

1. Download the image here

2. Download the TFTP server here

3. On a windows XP computer set the Ethernet card to 10 Mbps half duplex in network card properties.

4. set your IP:192.168.2.2, subnet:255.255.255.0 and gateway to 192.168.2.1. hook up the computer to the router using a LAN cable, do not plug the LAN cable into the WAN port on the router, plug it into one of the 4 LAN ports.

5.Disable any WiFi ports on your computer before continuing.

6. open the TFTP executable, set server address to 192.168.2.1, leave password blank, browse to the location of the firmware and finally set the number of retries to 25 and click upgrade

7. unplug the power connector on the router and plug it back in all the lights should flash on the router. If all goes well the TFTP uploader should indicate that firmware upload was successful

if nothing happened then wait until the WLAN light goes on and and all other lights except for the power, WLAN and only one of the LAN lights (where you have hooked up the router to the computer) are on. unplug and replug the router (might take up to 20 retries to work).

The Wired ports are disabled in this version as it has a different switch chip so only wireless will work after flashing. all the ports can either work as WAN ports or LAN ports. If you want the router to function as a regular WiFi router with one WAN port and no LAN ports (you cannot plug in computers to the LAN ports)

1. Connect to the router over wireless. The default SSID is dd-wrt. You will be able to access the GUI at 192.168.1.1
2. Telnet to 192.168.1.1 In Windows type telnet 192.168.1.1 in command prompt. The default username is root and password is admin
3. To use all ethernet ports as WAN, set

nvram set wan_to_lan=yes
nvram commit
reboot

To restore setting to LAN (default)

nvram unset wan_to_lan
nvram commit
reboot

If you want to use the router as a 4 port LAN switch without WiFi then follow the instructions below

1. Connect to the router over wireless. The default SSID is dd-wrt. You will be able to access the GUI at 192.168.1.1
2. Telnet to 192.168.1.1 In Windows type telnet 192.168.1.1 in command prompt. The default username is root and password is admin
3. Type the following commands:

nvram set Belkin_ver=2000

nvram commit

reboot

The default setting is for all the ports to act as LAN ports.

I got most of the above information here.

Xubuntu based digital picture frame

I have been planning to build a digital picture frame from an old Dell Inspiron laptop for the last few months. I finally got enough time after my exams to start this project. While such projects abound on the net what I had in mind has not been done so far. My idea was to build a photo frame from an old  laptop but the twist was that I wanted to be able to administer it remotely through a custom application that i intended to write in QT4. I first tried going the Juicebox way but that didn’t work so well as I had to convert images into a proprietary format, The screen size is really tiny due to these reasons I decided to convert the old laptop that I had  into a Picture frame/media center/backup device.

The first thing that I did was to research how other people had built their picture frames. I wanted to build this with  minimum modifications such that if I wanted to I could turn this back into its original from again.

I got most of the information i needed from this site. I first referred to the Dell Inspiron 8000 service manual to figure out how to take apart the laptop. you have to be pretty careful with the ribbon cable connection the LCD to the rest of the main board as it is very delicate and can be damaged easily. I ended up damaging this cable but luckily was able to find a replacement on eBay. I ordered the cable and got working on trying to fit the screen onto the wooden frame that I bought at Walmart for $5. The idea here was to remove the plastic bezel and the backing around the screen, flip the screen around and mount it back on the L-shaped frame such that when the laptop is closed the screen would be on the top much like a tablet PC. A wooden frame can then be easily fixed on top of the screen.

here are a few pictures from the disassembly

After  waiting for a week the cable finally arrived and I was able to start with the frame again. since the screen would be covering the keyboard and the trackpad as well as the button for switching on/off the computer. I scavenged the toggle switch from an old paper shredder and soldered it to the track pads on the power switch.

Next I decided to remove the battery pack as it was adding extra weight to the frame, besides it was pretty old and didn’t hold a charge. To test that all this disassembly had not damaged anything critical I decided to power it up and check if Ubuntu could be installed on to this computer. I first tried Ubuntu but this was too memory hungry for the meager configuration of this laptop. I tried Fluxbuntu next but found it lacking some applications that I used frequently. I finally settled on Xubuntu as I had the same thing on my primary laptop.

once the installation was complete, I started to put together the frame. The white cardboard sheet on the frame had to be resized to fit the 15″ screen on the laptop. I started with a similar sized cardboard and did a rough cut, once I was satisfied by the result I transfered the same dimensions to the white cardboard. Next I used a couple of screws and pieces of wood to fit the laptop onto the wooden frame.

Since this model did not come with a WiFi adapter I decided to buy a USB WiFi adapter. I settled on the zyxel G-202 as it is supported in Linux and setup is very easy. I also decided to get a powered USB hub as the laptop has only 2 USB ports and I might decide to hook up more devices or decide to charge other devices of the USB hub. I settled on the Belkin 4 port USB hub. Now that the frame was put together the next step was to configure the frame, I will detail the software configuration in my next post.

Installing Ubuntu on Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop

I got an Dell Inspiron 8000 from my Sister-in-law a couple of months ago and wanted to remove Windows ME that came with it and install Ubuntu. I popped in the Feisty install disk and booted the computer the first major snag that hit me was the screen, the screen was split into three parts and looked fuzzy. A quick search on Google told me that this was a common problem with this model and was caused by a bug in the Xorg code. I would need to tweak the refresh rates in xorg.conf to fix this. I managed to hit enter on each screen of the install wizard and completed the installation. After rebooting into my shiny new Ubuntu desktop I switched to the terminal by pressing ctrl+alt+f1, after logging in I edited the xorg.conf using the following command.

sudo vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf

I then inserted the following two lines under the monitor section.

HorizSync 31-82
VertRefresh 40-110

I also changed the color depth from 24bits to 16 bits and inserted the following lines under the device section.

Option “AGPMode” “4″
Option “AGPSize” “32″
Option “EnablePageFlip” “true”
Option “Display” “BIOS”
Option “SWCursor” “true”
Option “CCEusecTimeout” “20000″

I saved the changes to the file by pressing “:w” and hitting enter. I then restarted the X server by pressing ctrl+alt+f7 and hitting ctrl+alt+backspace  this fixed the problem with the screen.

Since this Laptop didn’t come with a WiFi card I decided to get a USB WiFi adapter after some research I decide to go in for the Zyxcel G-202 USB wireless Adapter as many posts on the Ubuntu forums indicated that this particular adapter was easy to setup. The installation was a breeze and although I had to use NDISwrapper the speed is very good. The updated kernel increased performance quite a bit. I must say am pretty impressed with the new kernel and its support for WiFi devices. I am going to turn this laptop into an HTPC/Picture Frame, will post more info on that once am done with it.

The El chepo battery Hack

Any self respecting geek will have a ton of gadgets which have all sorts of battery requirements. While some savvy people buy rechargeable batteries and save a few bucks others find more creative ways to save some dough. The next time you are in the super market and want to buy some AA, AAA batteries or watch batteries use the knowledge you gained from these videos to save some money.

32 AA batteries for $5.

8 button cells for $2.

6 AA batteries for $6.

How to fix the error “The greeter application appears to be crashing” in Ubuntu

While fooling around with the XDMCP configuration on Ubuntu I checked the “Enable accessible login” under the “Accessibility” tab, Big mistake , on the next reboot I got the following error ” The greeter application appears to be crashing. Attempting to use a different one ” . I was not able to login into Ubuntu as the greeter kept crashing repeatedly.

I searched on the Ubuntu forums, most of the fixes on the Ubuntu forums talked about unchecking the box but the problem was that I couldn’t login into the system to do that in the first place. After studying the gdm.conf I figured out a way to fix this.

If the GUI fails to load and you are unable to access the system menu then you should try the instructions below.

1. first reboot your computer into maintenance mode/recovery mode.

2. open /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-custom by entering the following command

sudo vim /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-custom

3. press i to enter into insert mode. Locate the following line and comment it by inserting a # in front of the line.

GtkModulesList=gail:atk-bridge:/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/modules/libdwellmouselistener:/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/modules/libkeymouselistener

4. press the Esc key and then type in :wq to save and quit the editor.

5. type sudo init 6 to reboot that should fix the problem.I am using gutsy tribe 5 and looks like this problem has been present in Ubuntu ever since dapper hope they fix it before gutsy gets released.

One station to charge them all – DIY charging station

Ever since I saw this video I have wanted to make a charging station of my own. I opted for a Plastic box that is easily available in Family Dollar or CVS which cost me about $6, since I didn’t have a drill or pretty much any other tool mentioned in the video I used my trusty soldering iron to melt thru the plastic and a pocket knife to shave the rough edges. After 20 minutes of work here are the results.

The box	Inside the box
with wires and adapters	done, ready for charging

It was pretty easy and now I have a very functional and useful charging station which hides away all the messy cables and houses all of my gadgets in one place.

Nintendo @ E3 a big let down

I was watching the Nintendo conference at E3 on G4 yesterday, boy was it boring, Reggie announced the Wii zapper and my first impression is that it looks kind of ugly, its a little like the blaster from the PC game Sin. The suggested price of 19.99$ seems a little bit expensive for just a housing. The video demo shows there is nothing like kicking zombie butt with a Wii zapper, hope the zapper will greatly reduce the unseemly key combinations used in certain games. The control system for the meteoroid prime 3 corruption looks great too. If the demo was indeed running on a Wii then that should silence all the critics of the Wii’s graphics capability, the demo looked stunning and builds upon the beauty of previous meteoroid prime series.

Most of the game release info was already on the net a few days back so most of the announcement do not come as a big surprise. While M$ is ignoring the casual gamer market by positioning its Xbox 360 as an elite gamer rig Nintendo is definitely alienating the hard core gamer. If you are an hardcore gamer then there is nothing exciting about the game releases except for Resident Evil umbrella chronicles and Meteoroid (I am an FPS guy). As rumored a new Mii channel to showcase your Mii creations was announced.

Finally a new title, a successor to Wii sports the Wiifit introduces a new controller I don’t know how much this one will cost I bet on a 40-80$ range for this one( pretty soon you might have to get an extra room for storing all these freaking Wii attachments). The goalie game demo looks great . I hope that the Wiifit does not build upon the Wiiplay package which was a poorly designed crapware. overall the Wiifit package tries to push the boundaries of what can be done with the Wii . The only saving grace of the whole event was Wiifit and is definitely going to be a big hit with people of all ages.

looks like Nintendo is just rehashing all the controller crap (Wii blasters and steering wheels) that have already been released by 3rd party manufacturers. one lousy channel that looses novelty after 24hrs and multiplayer gaming thrown in for some games as an afterthought, pretty disappointing I should say and as a side note please no more Mario games please, please, please………………………

Maybe I was expecting too much and thats why I was not very impressed. I was looking forward to the inevitable HDD support announcement, Wireless headsets, a keyboard attachment such as the thumb board for the 360 controller. Even a small update to the channel lineup (other the Mii channel) would have been more exciting . How about a simple announcement assuring everyone that production of Wii has been increased to meet the demand would have gone a long way.