Long-term Memory

Since none of the dd-wrt releases include ip6tables support, I added it myself. The standard kernel does support module loading, so you can simply add additional kernel features without reflashing the device. You do need some writable storage. I use the remaining 4MB of flash using JFFS, but using an external storage (USB, network, …) is also possible.

Since you can’t run a complete build environment on the router itself, you’ll have to set up a cross-compiling environment on your own machine. As I found out, this isn’t always very easy to do…
Continue reading ‘Compiling custom dd-wrt kernel modules’ »

I bought myself a new WiFi router. When in the shop, I specifically searched for a router that is supported by dd-wrt, and has (at least) 8MB of flash. I settled for the Linksys WRT320N: it has a dual band (switchable between 2.4GHz and 5GHz, not simultaneous) 802.11a/b/g/n radio, a 4 port GbE switch, and a WAN port. It houses a Broadcom BC4717 processor running at 354MHz, 8MB of flash and 32MB of RAM.

The default Linksys firmware is actually not bad, but dd-wrt just offers a ton more features: Multiple SSIDs, IPv6 support (including Sixxs tunneling), WAN volume monitoring, custom firewalling, traffic shaping, … So I decided to void my warranty and put my router on steroids! Mandatory note: this may very well turn your router in to a very expensive brick.

Continue reading ‘Converting a WRT320N to dd-wrt’ »

I usually don’t just repost other people’s posts, but this one really deserves some extra attention. It explains a very elegant way to hop using SSH.

Continue reading ‘Hopping from host to host with SSH, automatically’ »

I tried to upgrade my silverlight plugin from version 3 (3.0.50106.0) to version 4 (4.0.50917.0). I downloaded the DMG, followed the wizard all the way through, restarted Firefox as requested and saw that I was still at version 3… Strangely, Safari did load and use version 4, so the install was successful. So I searched my entire system fore some remains of Silverlight 3, without success.

The only place I could find the old version mentioned, was in the pluginreg.dat file in my firefox profile. I just erased this file, and it all magically worked!

One very nice feature the iPhone lacks is the ability to request a delivery report on text messages. I usually abuse these by sending a text message to family/friends while they’re on a plane. As soon as they land and switch on their phone, I get a delivery report. Which essentially tells me “for free” that the person has landed. (With Belgian carriers, receiving text messages is always free, even abroad, because you can’t refuse them).

Continue reading ‘SMS Delivery report on iPhone’ »

I’m a fan of keyboard shortcuts. Not to memorize them, but to use them. It’s just so much quicker to hit CMD+W to close the current browser tab than it is to carefully navigate your mouse to that 12*12 pixels button. However, this didn’t work flawlessly. Sometimes I get the ubiquitous “do you want to save?” question and I have to use the mouse to click “Don’t save”; Tab doesn’t seem to work.

Until I found out how to change that setting, that is. It’s hidden in the System Preferences under Keyboard – Keyboard Shortcuts. You can change Full Keyboard Access to “All Controls”, which is the behavior I’m used to from Linux and Windows.

The graphs of the ESC logging data I made earlier aren’t as pretty as HTML5 allows… So I retried it using HighCharts and a bit of JavaScript. The result is a standalone LogViewer page which interprets and graphs the log data entirely client-side. The page itself is fairly boring until you feed in a log file.

Clearly I’m not a layout specialist, but the functionality is there.

Place: Home
Batteries flown: 0.2
Time flown: 0h07 (cumulative model timer: 4h40)
Flight battery recharged with: (2)
Tx battery recharged with:

Comments:
Got my miniTitan repaired; at around €20 it was fairly cheap. But the governor-config still needed to be done. So I gave the collective a punch while in a hoover and noticed a drop in RPM, as it was last time. I changed the settings to have a governor gain at “Medium (25)” instead of “Low (15)”.

Continue reading ‘Flight log – 2010-08-09’ »

Place: Home
Batteries flown: 0.2
Time flown: 0h03 (cumulative model timer: 4h33)
Flight battery recharged with: (2) 2398 mAh (after full discharge)
Tx battery recharged with:

Comments:
My miniTitan was repaired and had a new ESC. Time for the first test flight. After a minute of hoovering, I shortly pushed full collective to check the governor. The headspeed dropped, not surprisingly since the governor is set to it’s lowest setting. So I pushed full collective again, to see if the governor is able to compensate.

Again the rotor headspeed dropped. The governor did compensate, but only the motor rpm increased, not the rotor’s… And then the ground intervened. I squeezed the remaining rpm’s out of the rotor to soften the crash, but it did hit fairly hard.

Continue reading ‘Flight log – 2010-07-14’ »

As mentioned, my new ESC also has data-logging capabilities. The provided software actually has a fairly descend viewer, but it lacks some features.

Continue reading ‘ESC data logging’ »