Hack Avatar Blog

Yes, I have been disregarding my site recently. Truth be told, I have been so busy that time has been flying. I recently got myself a Linksys WRT54G (v3.1) router off of eBay, and did a few hacks to it. There will be a write-up coming sometime soon, I promise. For now, I got an SD card in it, flashed it with DD-WRT linux and made a minor cooling hack (think: heatsinks). Any further suggestions are welcome.
Also, my EeePC has been undergoing some large (software) modifications. I have been compiling Arch Linux onto it, see if I can get everything working any better speeds out of it.

My Racing Simulator is coming along slowly, I have been so busy with other things (come to think about it, most of these things should have given priority to other things, such as my college work…). Right now I am still working on the frame. Need more steel.

For those of you who aren’t blind visit regularly, you may have noticed that I have changed the theme of this blog to something more suitable. Thats all for now, ill try to come back soon

Wow, hasn’t it been a while! I have been so busy recently, I haven’t had time to work with this site. College and TAFE have had me working like a slave. Anyway, here’s some updates.

I have gotten an old Proliant 1850R server off eBay, for an absolute bargain too. I foolishly made the mistake of upgrading the old fans to some newer, much quieter ones. I had to cut the wires to get the plugs to suit the motherboard. Unfortunately, the server has some strange BIOS that will not accept any fans other than the ones that are meant for it. it just complains of a fan failure, and then restarts. How it knows is beyond me, I thought it must be an RPM measurement.

So, I got some Thermaltake adjustable fans. “Surely these will work”, I thought. Instead of butchering the new, $25 each fans, I used the Proliant fan plug into a standard 3-pin fan socket. I fired up the jet engine with gusto, and watched carefully. The server complained of the dreaded fan failure, so I fiddled with the RPM dials. Regardless of the speed set, the server failed to boot time.

Then, suddenly, it booted. After numerous reboots on its own behalf, it simply continued, as if the fans were  the normal ones. I was seething. Mental note never to change the fans in a server.

Also, I had a good old LAN Party recently. 18 hours of solid, hardcore gaming. I took my server (now running ClarkConnect v4.2) as a fast file server. I won a Kingston 1GB flash drive. Any ideas what to do with it? I was thinking I might put it inside my EeePC…

I am also making a racing simulator. I want to put a Logitech G25 in it when I have finished. I’ve made a racing seat with some 1.6mm thick sheet metal, and I am now working on the cockpit’s frame. I have also bought from a wrecker’s a instruments cluster. It’s out of a Ford Futura, and I want to make it work from USB, with data output from Live for Speed. I’m currently looking at the PIC18F4550.

Anyway, thats enough for this update, more coming soon (hopefully) :).

Well, I recently bought a U3 Flash Drive, but I was a little disapointed in the lack of U3 support for the tools I reguarly use at work. Before I was using PortableApps with a few of my own additions, simply by inserting the .exe file into a subdirectory within the PortableApps folder. Unfortunately, as far as I know U3 does not support running direct executables, they run a special file with the extension of u3p. After a bit of Googling, I came across PackageFactory, which allows you to create your own u3p file from the executables and other required dll’s. I already knew that the executables were portable (I was running them on my old USB, remember?) so I set about “converting” them.

Anyway, you can see my converted software here.

I bought myself a Sandisk U3 Titanium the other day, and I am quite impressed with the little beauty. While fairly expensive for 4GB (AUD$84), apparently the thing can stand 2000 pounds (roughly 907KG) of crushing force and it will be OK. Not that I intend to try it, but it does make a nice boasting point. The “liquidmetal” appearance is pretty cool, and best of all the plastic bit lights up blue. I also like not having a cap to worry about losing.

As for software, the U3’s have almost zero linux support. You can see both the main partition (where your data goes) and the CDFS partition with the menu software, but thats it. However on Windows, the software does a pretty good job. You insert the drive, and it automatically fires up the U3 menu for the bottom right corner. I suppose that this autorun is courtesy of the CDFS partition, or otherwise the standard Windows XP USB menu would come up, right? I think that this is a fairly major security issue; what if I hacked it to run a few nasties (password grabbers or spyware spring to mind) instead of the menu?

U3 do a fairly good job of having a wide array of software downloadable right to your U3, but I have a few issues. Firstly, there isn’t such variety as PortableApps, which I was running on my last drive. Secondly, most of it is payware. Sure, you can get quite a few free trials and freebies there, but there are plenty of good open-source alternatives to the ones offered for purchase by U3. This brings me to the downside, as far as I know you cannot add your own applications to the U3. You could run them from the drive, sure, but I don’t think they can be added to the menu. This warrants a closer look, perhaps I will get to it soon.

The single two applications for the flash drive that I like (Windows only, remember) is FindMyU3 and Avast Antivirus U3. FindMyU3 is a application which runs on insertion of the USB (still thinking security risks) and brings up a nice box for a good Samaritan to get into contact with the owner of the U3. Aside from being slightly annoying, the application does not divulge any details (but I’ll bet they could find a bit about you by going through 4GB of your documents) until you report it lost on the website. You can even report it stolen, and the application will give you details about them, such as their IP address. Hopefully the cops will be able to do something about that, if it was important enough. FindMyU3 costs USD$1 per year, which is pretty good, considering the price of the drive. As for Avast, it is quite a nice little portable AV, with quite a few little functions. Unfortunately, you have to pay for this one too, but the trial that came with the USB is quite impressive.

Considering everything, this is a tough little USB drive, and I for one am impressed. Given all of the above points, and considering that it is designed for windows, not Linux, I rate it an eight out of ten.