dan wells

Intel has recently released their Intel Atom processor and motherboards. I specifically like the Dual Core one. While these motherboards are relatively easy to get your hands on by ordering online (and cheap!) in SA, I’m having serious trouble finding any decent Mini-ITX cases for it.

With my project I’m hoping to deploy to small form factor PC’s, most of them to be simple routers which do a little packet crunching. Ideally I’m looking for a case which I can put in an additional network card, that’s it. Smallest form factor as possible really, and low cost.

Will keep you posted if I find something decent :P

My supervisors and myself have decided that I’ve been doing too much technical work lately and that I must start my Masters thesis write up. I could not agree more.

I have constructed my thesis layout using LaTeX, nicely laid out into seperate files for each chapter, the bibliography, appendices and the glossary.

Currently I’m working on my Chapter 2, which is the Related Work or the Literature Survey. It’s a good start and I’m slowly getting back into writing again. Things are going faster after each consecutive day that I work on it.

Watch this space, but Chapter 2 is presently sitting at 3338 words.

Totally random post. So arb one wonders whether it should be read or not… Decide yourself, maybe you need this information if you’re stuck on an island with a bunch of USB cables… Anyway, lets get into it…

While making myself some fly leads for my new server in the monument I decided to have some quick harmless fun. A couple months ago the tech staff were throwing out old equipment and in that stash I found a box of one meter long USB extensions. This box had/has a bunch (+100) extensions in it.

So having some RJ45 plugs and a crimper and an exessive amount of USB extensions I wondered whether I could make an ethernet cable out of these USB cables… Figures it’s possible, even though USB only works with four wires in each cable, Ethernet 10/100mb only works with four wires out of the eight. Gigabit Ethernet and higher use all eight, and have their own special cable requirements. With a standard Cat5e cable you can run your network (Ethernet 10/100) and telephone off it.

So. After a bit of Googling and asking around (thanks Barry) using pins 1,2,3 and 6 you can get 10/100 Ethernet. So having two leads with one side RJ45 and female USB, the other RJ45 and male USB, you can plug in a standard USB extension cable between and have an Ethernet cable.

Fun times. Obviously one can NOT plug the USB port into the PC and try to run Ethernet over it, this requires some hardware intervention. And due to the nature of the USB cables which I had, they are shielded but not twisted pair, so I’m sure there are some limitations in that.

Just a quick update on how things are going! (Sorry it’s been a while!)

So, in my virtual network which I posted about before, we have our ACR which is the gateway to our network, under this we have multiple routers and under those there are multiple machines. After much fussing with Squid Caching Proxy Server and LightSquid (displays Squid logs nicely, served off Apache) and FreeRADIUS authentication and DaloRADIUS to manage it. These are all running rather nicely but have been put aside for the moment (as our first deployment will not be needing Squid as we have an already well maintained cache here at Rhodes).

Our first deployment of the project will be to the SCW network, the Settler City Wireless project here at Rhodes, which is fully functioning test network. As the connections are wireless, and therefore rather susceptible to eavesdropping, we’ve set up PPPoE tunnels to secure and encrypt the wireless data.

Ok, so we’ve mimicked what is currently in service in the SCW, now to extend it to be easily managed and also monitor traffic for more information on how things are working. We’re going to be using FreeRADIUS combined with DaloRADIUS for managing user accounts (and going to be looking into the Billing and Accouting sections of DaloRADIUS). Cacti has been installed but it needs to be configured for the specific data we require and then graph it. Also we must get ahold of the Alvarion MIBS so the WiMAX devices can be monitored too.

Also, I want to look into using VMware Studio (released this month) which “provides convenient management features such as a web-based console with quick-start templates to streamline the authoring process of virtual appliances, and a command-line interface to enable the automation of management tasks and empower VMware Studio 1.0 to act as an extension of appliance vendors’ existing build and source control systems.”

More to come…

Awesome awesome device. Very happy with it :)

Does all the fantastic things a GPS should do, routes, tracks, points of interest, etc. It’s also very good looking and has a massive screen :) Feels much lighter than it looks. Takes SD cards. Comes pre-packaged with maps and custom points of interest (like all the speed cameras in SA).

What annoyed my pants off though was the lack of any help on how to connect the device to your PC as a GPS. When you plug it in via the USB cable (no matter if the device is off/on/navigating to the closest Nandos) it shuts down and enters ‘Mass Storage Device’ mode. In this mode you can do nothing but access the files on the device from the mapped drives on your PC (the screen responds to no taps, the power button doesn’t work), and load files onto it, yes that’s great, but I want to be able to get the GPS information and use it!

So after much fiddling I managed to work out a method to connect it as a GPS, and charge, and do everything it usually does BUT also be able to pull GPS data off it from USB to use in whatever software on your PC. If you don’t have one, this might be rather boring so skip until next paragraph. Without USB cable connected, start Nuvi, hold down on battery icon to get statistics page, connect USB. At this point your PC will tell you that you have connected a new device and will want to get drivers for “Garmin USB GPS”. I just clicked search for drivers and it worked fine. Now, after the Nuvi has completed the RAM and ROM checks (they both say “Pass”), tap “Exit”. You’ll get the big Garmin logo, now turn the Nuvi off. On the screen (very dim) it’ll say something like “Charging Battery, Slide power key to turn on”. Now turn it back on. Viola, Nuvi connected as GPS device to PC, not Mass Storage Device.

Makes me wonder why Garmin didn’t just developed a screen that pops up when you connect the USB and has two options “GPS Mode” or “File Transfer Mode”. Silly nana’s.

I watched Wall-E last night. I would give it a 8.75/10! Fantastic animated movie, I was laughing the whole way through =) The movie not only shows the plight of the human race having to abandon Earth, as it is too toxic to live on, but also has a very sweet romance story between two robots.

I would highly recommend this movie for anyone. But especially to any person organising their first date! You will score!

How exciting, the 102’s now have their pracs in the Hamilton Building undergrad labs… Makes it much less painful for me! Seems to be a good group so far…

I need a network to do my implementation and testing of my Masters project. I created a virtual network as a backbone to base my project on. It’s a very simple network, partly based on how the Dwesa test network is implemented. Dwesa is a rural community in the Eastern Cape where many developmental projects using ICTs are researched.

The virtual network that I constructed has three ‘levels’. At the lowest level there is a typical ‘workstation’ which can be any PC, with any operating system, at a site. That workstation sends packets destined for other networks through its router. The router sits at the edge of the site and passes packets in that have been sent to it or routes packets for other networks to the access concentrator. The access concentrator either sends those packets to the Internet or to another site via their routers. The routers and the access concentrator are using FreeBSD 6.3.

For more detailed information see the document on my Virtual Test Network. Any feedback about how I’ve set this up would be great.

Never confuse danwells.org with danwells.com. Know ‘Stan’ from Days of our Lives?! Hectic!

It seems that InSight Technologies has put up a couple WiFi APs in the Mews, I noticed three new SSID’s in the area. I will look into this. It appears to be some sort of pre-paid system. I wonder whereabouts the APs are physically located? In peoples flats? I’m guessing they backhaul through ADSL.

I should pull out my WiSpy SSM Tool and do some spectrum analysis :)

I’m going to visit InSight to chat with them =) (And pay a car guard R1 because I have no choice, but that’s a totally different rant)