So... the other week Lynn's car got broken into. I'd left the door unlocked by mistake. I was pretty mad about the whole thing, both at myself for leaving the door unlocked as well as the fact that someone actually went up my driveway into my backyard and went through her car while we were home.
Now I've got to admit, I feel like even more of an idiot today. My car, sporting a new tire, is back in our driveway. And I left the door unlocked last night.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
How To: Convert your webcam to see infrared
Okay, so I should put in a bit of a status update here on Operation Fury. The surveillance rig is up and running (a couple minor hiccups with the wireless connection, the culprit being a bad wireless adapter).
I still plan on doing a How To on setting up the actual surveillance setup itself, but I should probably do this one first. NOTE: This is a project in progress, I'll update the post when I'm completely done.
I still plan on doing a How To on setting up the actual surveillance setup itself, but I should probably do this one first. NOTE: This is a project in progress, I'll update the post when I'm completely done.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Operation Fury: Revenge is a dish best served cold...
Words cannot describe the rage I'm feeling. Someone is messing with the wrong dude...
Lynn's car got broken into last night. I shouldn't really say broken into, as I left it unlocked. Part of my anger is directed at myself... but we had 2 play houses for my daughter to get unloaded the other night from her dad's car, and I was carrying the little one, so we spent a good deal of time focused on getting everything into the house, so the car was left unlocked.
My car is waiting on a replacement tire at her parents because it got a nail in the tire, so there is one less car in our driveway. Typically we take my car when we go places, leaving Lynn's car alone in the driveway. Last night was our anniversary, and instead of going out, we decided to order out.
Since my car wasn't there last night, someone probably thought we weren't home. The thief probably went up the driveway as the property is fenced in pretty well on all sides (high, wooden fence) and it wouldn't be the first time I've witnessed someone sauntering down my driveway after casing our garage (cops showed up within a minute or two with a canine unit, the guy was already gone by then).
He opened Lynn's car, went through the glove compartment, center console, threw stuff around. I haven't even had the chance to check the trunk (we found out this morning as we were rushing to work) to see if anything is missing there.
Fortunately, there's not a lot to take; Lynn says her insurance card and registration is missing, but we'll have to take a closer look after work.
It's the principle of the thing that makes me mad. People think they can walk up my driveway, go into my garage, go through our property, and take what they want?! Hell no. I'm not putting up with that shit.
Read on to find out my latest project to bait and catch the bastard using a high-tech solution.
Lynn's car got broken into last night. I shouldn't really say broken into, as I left it unlocked. Part of my anger is directed at myself... but we had 2 play houses for my daughter to get unloaded the other night from her dad's car, and I was carrying the little one, so we spent a good deal of time focused on getting everything into the house, so the car was left unlocked.
My car is waiting on a replacement tire at her parents because it got a nail in the tire, so there is one less car in our driveway. Typically we take my car when we go places, leaving Lynn's car alone in the driveway. Last night was our anniversary, and instead of going out, we decided to order out.
Since my car wasn't there last night, someone probably thought we weren't home. The thief probably went up the driveway as the property is fenced in pretty well on all sides (high, wooden fence) and it wouldn't be the first time I've witnessed someone sauntering down my driveway after casing our garage (cops showed up within a minute or two with a canine unit, the guy was already gone by then).
He opened Lynn's car, went through the glove compartment, center console, threw stuff around. I haven't even had the chance to check the trunk (we found out this morning as we were rushing to work) to see if anything is missing there.
Fortunately, there's not a lot to take; Lynn says her insurance card and registration is missing, but we'll have to take a closer look after work.
It's the principle of the thing that makes me mad. People think they can walk up my driveway, go into my garage, go through our property, and take what they want?! Hell no. I'm not putting up with that shit.
Read on to find out my latest project to bait and catch the bastard using a high-tech solution.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Cisco studies
Alright folks, it's time I returned to studying for my Cisco certifications. I've been studying networking technologies over the last year off and on... and over the last 6 months it's been more off than on.
If I can get my Cisco lab set back up, I'll post some IOS configuration stuff and the like. Hell, I probably just shouldn't even bother and instead just do it all through Dynamips/Dynagen. There's just something about the whir of a commercial-grade router that's hard to beat.
I'd like to give a brief shout-out to the regulars at the
[H]ard|Forum Networking & Security forum. I frequent the forum occasionally myself, usually sticking to handling questions about SOHO networking and wireless networks that are usually fielded by confused gamers and the like. Some of these guys are pretty friggin' smart though when it comes to networking. I spent a while on a project with many of them, called PeerIX. It was great motivation for my studies and I hope to get back involved in it again, if not something similar.
Anyhow, that's all for now. Today is our (Lynn and me) 3rd anniversary. Actually, we're not terribly certain, I asked her out in 2007 around midnight on April 15th... so it could actually be the 16th, which we're leaning towards because it at least it isn't tax day.
I'm going to spend the afternoon building our daughter a play house for the back yard, and then maybe I can take us out to dinner or something. Romantic, I know...
If I can get my Cisco lab set back up, I'll post some IOS configuration stuff and the like. Hell, I probably just shouldn't even bother and instead just do it all through Dynamips/Dynagen. There's just something about the whir of a commercial-grade router that's hard to beat.
I'd like to give a brief shout-out to the regulars at the
[H]ard|Forum Networking & Security forum. I frequent the forum occasionally myself, usually sticking to handling questions about SOHO networking and wireless networks that are usually fielded by confused gamers and the like. Some of these guys are pretty friggin' smart though when it comes to networking. I spent a while on a project with many of them, called PeerIX. It was great motivation for my studies and I hope to get back involved in it again, if not something similar.
Anyhow, that's all for now. Today is our (Lynn and me) 3rd anniversary. Actually, we're not terribly certain, I asked her out in 2007 around midnight on April 15th... so it could actually be the 16th, which we're leaning towards because it at least it isn't tax day.
I'm going to spend the afternoon building our daughter a play house for the back yard, and then maybe I can take us out to dinner or something. Romantic, I know...
Friday, April 2, 2010
Apologies...
I haven't blogged in a week. I've been working off and on on expanding my article on the EVO 4G and the Samsung Galaxy S, as well as dealing with the daily life of being a parent that works full time. So little time, so much to do...
Friday, March 26, 2010
Hummingbird vs Snapdragon: the 1 Ghz smartphone showdown
NOTE: This article has been officially hosted at AlienBabelTech.com. For a better reading experience, you may want to view the article here!
If you follow smartphone technology at all, you're sure to have heard of the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It's the reigning smartphone CPU heavyweight; a 1 GHz processor packed with a multitude of features, based upon the same ARM CPU technology that modern smartphones such as the Droid, Palm Pre, Nokia N900 and iPhone 3GS use. However, unlike those processors, the Snapdragon runs at 1 GHz while the others run at 600 MHz and under, and thus has become the chip of choice for premium smartphones.
The Snapdragon SoC (System on a Chip) has appeared on the market in several devices recently. The most well-known example is probably the Google Nexus One, though it had already appeared in a previous device, the HTC HD2. The HD2, released November 11th 2009, had a Snapdragon processor as well as a massive 4.3-inch display (diagonally measured), and received rave reviews that almost unanimously ended with one major complaint: the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. It’s an operating system largely unchanged from its predecessors and prone to software problems. In addition, to really make good use of the processing power of the phone, applications needed to exist that made use of that power, and the majority of applications written for Microsoft’s mobile OS just didn’t take advantage. The industry begged for an HD2 with Google’s Android mobile operating system, and HTC responded that it wasn’t going to happen.
But then Sprint announced the HTC EVO 4G at the CTIA 2010 trade show, and the mobile industry collectively went wild. Here was the phone everyone had been dreaming of; a 4.3-inch display and 1 GHz Snapdragon like the HD2, as well as a deployable kickstand, 8MP rear camera, 1.3MP front camera, HDMI port, and 4G WiMAX connectivity. The HD2 had essentially been reborn, new and improved, for the Android OS. Judging by the limelight cast upon the EVO 4G by the mobile enthusiast community, the EVO 4G is positioned to become one of the best selling smartphones of the year.
However, another device debuted at CTIA 2010 that was largely overshadowed by the launch of the EVO 4G: the Samsung GT-i9000 Galaxy S. This new phone, in contrast, has a 4-inch Super AMOLED display (more on that later), 5MP rear camera, 0.3MP front camera, (GSM/HSPDA) 3G/3.5G connectivity… and was mentioned almost as an afterthought to contain Samsung’s own 1 GHz processor. Samsung spent a lot of time at CTIA 2010 talking about the Super AMOLED display, and in contrast only a few moments disclosing details on the new SoC, stating that it has over 3x better performance than the leading competition (referring to graphics performance), and bests all other smartphone processors on the market today. Only later was it confirmed that the SoC was Samsung’s new 45 nm “Hummingbird” platform, the only production 1 GHz ARM processor thus far to challenge Qualcomm’s Snapdragon.
When the news of these phones hit the tech blogs, nearly all of the attention went to the HTC EVO 4G. The EVO 4G was what many had been waiting for, and the Samsung was typically given hardly a second glance. But let’s take a moment to really compare the hardware of these two Android 2.1 smartphones, and then we’ll even go a bit deeper into how the SoCs actually stack against one another when it comes to CPU and GPU processing power.
If you follow smartphone technology at all, you're sure to have heard of the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It's the reigning smartphone CPU heavyweight; a 1 GHz processor packed with a multitude of features, based upon the same ARM CPU technology that modern smartphones such as the Droid, Palm Pre, Nokia N900 and iPhone 3GS use. However, unlike those processors, the Snapdragon runs at 1 GHz while the others run at 600 MHz and under, and thus has become the chip of choice for premium smartphones.
The Snapdragon SoC (System on a Chip) has appeared on the market in several devices recently. The most well-known example is probably the Google Nexus One, though it had already appeared in a previous device, the HTC HD2. The HD2, released November 11th 2009, had a Snapdragon processor as well as a massive 4.3-inch display (diagonally measured), and received rave reviews that almost unanimously ended with one major complaint: the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. It’s an operating system largely unchanged from its predecessors and prone to software problems. In addition, to really make good use of the processing power of the phone, applications needed to exist that made use of that power, and the majority of applications written for Microsoft’s mobile OS just didn’t take advantage. The industry begged for an HD2 with Google’s Android mobile operating system, and HTC responded that it wasn’t going to happen.
But then Sprint announced the HTC EVO 4G at the CTIA 2010 trade show, and the mobile industry collectively went wild. Here was the phone everyone had been dreaming of; a 4.3-inch display and 1 GHz Snapdragon like the HD2, as well as a deployable kickstand, 8MP rear camera, 1.3MP front camera, HDMI port, and 4G WiMAX connectivity. The HD2 had essentially been reborn, new and improved, for the Android OS. Judging by the limelight cast upon the EVO 4G by the mobile enthusiast community, the EVO 4G is positioned to become one of the best selling smartphones of the year.
However, another device debuted at CTIA 2010 that was largely overshadowed by the launch of the EVO 4G: the Samsung GT-i9000 Galaxy S. This new phone, in contrast, has a 4-inch Super AMOLED display (more on that later), 5MP rear camera, 0.3MP front camera, (GSM/HSPDA) 3G/3.5G connectivity… and was mentioned almost as an afterthought to contain Samsung’s own 1 GHz processor. Samsung spent a lot of time at CTIA 2010 talking about the Super AMOLED display, and in contrast only a few moments disclosing details on the new SoC, stating that it has over 3x better performance than the leading competition (referring to graphics performance), and bests all other smartphone processors on the market today. Only later was it confirmed that the SoC was Samsung’s new 45 nm “Hummingbird” platform, the only production 1 GHz ARM processor thus far to challenge Qualcomm’s Snapdragon.
When the news of these phones hit the tech blogs, nearly all of the attention went to the HTC EVO 4G. The EVO 4G was what many had been waiting for, and the Samsung was typically given hardly a second glance. But let’s take a moment to really compare the hardware of these two Android 2.1 smartphones, and then we’ll even go a bit deeper into how the SoCs actually stack against one another when it comes to CPU and GPU processing power.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
How To: Hack a driver to support your hardware
Okay, so for some reason or another you want to install a driver that doesn't officially support your hardware. Maybe it's a (much cooler) driver for a competitor's product, maybe you can't find the driver and you happen to have another driver for a similar device, etc.
So whatever your reasons are, this is possible, though the results can't be guaranteed. Hardware has plenty of differences that require a very specific driver to ensure that it works properly. But if you don't have any other option, read on to find out how to hack support for your hardware into a driver!
So whatever your reasons are, this is possible, though the results can't be guaranteed. Hardware has plenty of differences that require a very specific driver to ensure that it works properly. But if you don't have any other option, read on to find out how to hack support for your hardware into a driver!
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