After using the new release on both my Galaxy Nexus and a Nexus 7 I have to agree with the claims. The emulator is feels like it is running at about 90% the speed of my Newton 2000u. the Screen reaction seems to be a little slower than the real thing but given time can only improve. I could see an Android tablet with Einstein replacing my beloved green machine one day.

There are still some things to fix in Einstein. Sound doesn’t work, there is no way to set data in or out, and the app menu needs to fix for 4.0+ devices. Regardless, I think we are closer to realizing Paul Guyot’s original idea for Einstein.

If you would like to run Einstein on your Android device, please check out My previous post here.

Einstien Update Announcement: [NTLK] New version of Einstein for Android
Einstein Project Page: http://code.google.com/p/einstein/

Written on Message Pad 2000u

DISCLAIMER: Do not use file sharing to download copyrighted material.

Not much to say here. I installed μTorrent so that I would have a way to download media off bittorrent. Transmission was also a great choice for bittorrent client.

UPnP Server

The coolest thing I’ve did with this project was setup a UPnP media server. The concept was simple: music, pictures, and videos are stored on the server and shared over the UPnP network protocol. Devices, such as a PS3, can see the content on the server and play it without having to download and save locally. There are several commercial products available that allows you create a UPnP server including MediaLink, EyeConnect, and Twonky. Being the person who liked to take the hard route sometimes I decided to skip all of those and go straight to MediaTomb, the open source alternative.

1. Install the XCode Development tools from Apple
2. Download and install MacPorts
3. Open a Terminal window and run all of the following commands as either “su” or “sudo”
4. port selfupdate
5. port install mediatomb
6. Wait for MediaTomb and all of its dependencies to finish compiling
7. Once compiling is complete you can start MediaTomb by running the command “mediatomb” (no su/sudo required)
8. The output from the command will give you the web address to MediaTomb’s web interface. Using Safari or your browser of choice you can select what content you share with your media devices

For my setup I wanted to stream content to my PS3. To do that there was a change I had to make to MediaTomb’s config file that was located in ~/.mediatomb. All I had to do was uncomment the line that said <protocolInfo extend="yes"/>. I also decided to disable the ability of my PS3 to see every folder on the server. That required changing <pc-directory upnp-hide="no"/> to <pc-directory upnp-hide="yes"/>.

With MediaTomb I could also enable the use of on-the-fly media transcoding. In the event I had a file the PS3 could not play, a rule could be setup in the config file that would automatically convert the media to a more compatible format. Using this feature required a lot of testing to work out settings the PowerMac could handle. Also, because the media files are being transcoded in real time I lost the ability to pause, fast forward, and rewind on the PS3. In the end I decided to take a different approach and setup folder actions to convert only files I wanted.

MediaTomb Transcoding

I mentioned earlier that I had developed an alternative to MediaTomb’s built in transcoding feature for media files that didn’t play on the PS3. I stole the idea from Vuze, another bittorent client, which added its own UPnP server. In the event Vuze downloaded a file that wasn’t compatible with the PS3 it would re-encode the file completely and then share the new version instead of the non-compatible version.

I was able to accomplish almost the same functionality using FFMPEG, folder actions, and MediaTomb’s built-in directory scan feature. If I had a file that did not work then I moved it to a folder called “convert”. Attached to that folder was an Applescript action that would tell FFMPEG to covert the file to a new format and save it in another folder called “compatible”. I then configured MediaTomb to scan the “compatible” folder every hour for new files and make them available to the PS3. For everything to work I had to rebuild FFMPEG to include codecs for aac, mp3, x264, and xvid. Below is the commands for MacPortsid

port deactivate ffmpeg
port install -f ffmpeg +nonfree

Below are the applescripts I wrote for the folder actions. When a file dropped into a folder the action would initiate the script and start processing the file through FFMPEG. Based on testing I had done some video files only needed the audio re-encoded for the PS3. Others required a complete re-encode. I’ll admit the PowerMac didn’t have the power to re-encode at realtime speeds, but I normally let it take care of files during the night or while I was at work.

Re-encoding only audio of a video file example:

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving these_items
repeat with i in these_items
set {name:Nm} to (info for i)
set Nm to quoted form of Nm as string
set vFolder to quoted form of POSIX path of this_folder as string
set vSource to quoted form of POSIX path of i as string
try
do shell script "/opt/local/bin/ffmpeg -y -i " & vSource & " -vn -f mp3 -ab 192k -ac 2 -ar 44100 " & vFolder & "converted/" & Nm & ".mp3"
on error
display dialog "There was an error when re-encoding " & Nm
end try
end repeat
end adding folder items to


Re-encoding Audio and video example:

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving these_items
repeat with i in these_items
set {name:Nm} to (info for i)
set Nm to quoted form of Nm as string
set vFolder to quoted form of POSIX path of this_folder as string
set vSource to quoted form of POSIX path of i as string
try
do shell script "/opt/local/bin/ffmpeg -y -i " & vSource & " -vcodec libxvid -vb 1000k -acodec libmp3lame -ar 44100 -ab 128k -ac 2 " & vFolder & "converted/" & Nm & ".avi"
on error
display dialog "There was an error when re-encoding " & Nm
end try
end repeat
end adding folder items to


Starting Meidatomb during startup:

1. Created a plain text file with the command /opt/local/bin/mediatomb -d
2. Save the file as mediatomb.command
3. Open a terminal window
4. Run the command chmod +x _folder_location_/mediatomb.command
5. Open System Preferences and go to Accounts
6. Select the account that auto logs in and select Login Items
7. Add mediatomb.command

With enough time and patience I could create a start lauch daemon to take care of starting MediaTomb up as a service, but I took the lazy man’s approach.

Next time: Other odds and things

OS Configuration

I decided to keep the partition layout in OS X simple. The OS would live on the 320GB hard drive. The 2TB drives would not have any special RAID configuration. Just one partition on each drive. Ideally I would have used 3x 2TB hard drives and configured them into a hardware RAID 5 configuration. That would have gave me 4TB of total storage with redundancy in the event one of the hard drives failed. Sadly the FirmTek SATA controller didn’t support any kind of hardware RAID and OS X didn’t support software RAID 5.

Backup Server

Creating a backup server was the easiest part to setup. On the server all I had to do was open up the Sharing System Preferences and enable AFP/SMB file sharing. Now the drives were available to other systems in my network. To get my Mac and Windows systems to use the network storage for backup required configuration on their end.

OS X:
Open up a terminal window and enter the following command.
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1
Using network shares other than an Apple Time Capsule is completely unsupported by Apple. Users previously reported issues when a drive filled up, which caused their entire Time Machine backup to become corrupt. I’m uncertain if the the issues were ever resolved in 10.6 but to test I followed the advice of some and added a disk quota for the backup’s sparse bundle. Right now I’ve yet to hit the limit so I don’t know what to expect when I do.

Windows 7:
Windows Vista/7 came with a built in backup utility that allowed for the use of network shares as a storage location. That is great if it wasn’t for the fact Vista/7 also broke authentication when connecting to Windows shares hosted on OS X 10.5. The problem was remedied by making an edit to the system with “gpedit.msc”. Information was found at the following link: http://www.windowsreference.com/windows-7/unable-to-access-network-share-on-macos-x-from-windows-7/. With the authentication issues sorted out it was possible to configure Windows 7 to perform a full backup of the system drive on a regular basis.

Next Post: Media Sharing

Friends,
Do you surf the web on a mobile phone?
Do you find that experience too rich and interactive?
Do you wish for a simpler Internet experience while on the go?
What if I told you there was a way? A way to surf the Internet anywhere there is a cellular signal?
And do it from a Newton?

Introducing: WiFi Tether 3.1 Beta 11. Now with WiFi Tether you can turn your mobile phone into a mobile wifi hotspot and allow any wireless device to connect on the go.

How much would you be willing to pay for a product like this? $20? $50? $100? Now for an unlimited time you can have Wifi Tether 3.1 Beta 11 for the low price of $0.00. To prove how easy this product it I’m going to demonstrate on an Apple Newton 2000 MessagePad. Just watch:

1. Download WiFi Tether from http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether/
2. Launch “WiFi Tether” from the apps drawer
   
   
3. On the Newton open the wifi slip set the SSID to “AndroidTether”
   
4. Open your favorite Internet application to bring up the connection slip
5. Use a Internet setup configured for DHCP
   
6. And connect to your desired Internet website/service

Here you can see the Newton connected to Google’s PDA formatted homepage using the Newt’sCape web browser. Nothing special except I downloaded the site over Verizon 3G.

Here you can see WiFi Tether showing that a device has connected wirelessly. The MAC address prefix belongs to Lucent Technologies who made the WaveLAN Turbo card I have.

And there you have it. A connected Newton or computer anywhere you go. Couldn’t be simpler.

Have fun.

This year I thought it was time to finally build a physical media server and move all of my music, videos, and old documents off my PCs. The original plan was to build a server using a mini-ITX motherboard with 4 SATA ports, and 3x 2 terabyte hard drives in a RAID 5 configuration, stuffed inside the smallest case possible. The system, in theory, would sit behind my TV and share everything out using FreeNAS.

Unfortunately, those plans have not worked out so now I’m falling back on an alternative. Why not take an old computer I already have and turn it into the storage I want?

The Base System:

What I’m starting with is my 2001 Quicksilver PowerMac G4. It is by no means a fast computer by today’s standards, but all I need it to do is store/share files. For that the system should do fine. If you are looking at the photos and thinking that doesn’t look stock then you are correct. Over the years I replaced many of the components so let me get you up to speed.

• 2001 Quicksilver PowerMac G4
• 2x 1.8 GHz PowerPC 7447 processor from GigaDesigns
• 3x 512MB PC133 SDRAM
• ATi Radeon 9800 Pro video card w/ Artic Cooling ATi Silencer 1 NVIDIA Geforce 2MX
• Pioneer 111D DVD burner
• Generic USB 2.0 PCI card from CompUSA
• Silenx iXtrema Pro fans

So that is the base system I’m starting with. To get the PowerMac ready I need a little bit more hardware. Namely a PCI hard drive controller. If anyone has upgraded G4 PowerMacs then you may know that every system before the 2002 Quicksilver PowerMac does not have 48-bit LBA on the PATA interfaces. In simple terms it means the motherboard cannot read hard drive beyond 137GB. To get around that a PCI hard drive controller is required. My choice is the FirmTek SeriTek/1V4 SATA controller from OWC. It adds four SATA ports that operate at 1.5Gb/s with ability to boot from a SATA drive. The 1.5Gb/s throughput may create another bottleneck, but I want to get off of booting from a PATA drive since that will be even slower. If I didn’t care about the ability to boot from a SATA drive then an alternative would be the Rosewill RC-217 controller that had 3Gb/s support. The Rosewill controller is built off of a Silicon Image 3124 SATA controller, which has OS X drivers.

The Parts:

• FirmTek SeriTek/1V4 SATA PCI-X controller
• 2x 2TB Western Digital Caviar Green 3.5” hard drives (3Gb/s)
• 1x 320GB Western Digital Scorpio 2.5” hard drive
• Molex to SATA power adapters
• SATA data cables (2 provided with FirmTek controller)

The Installation:

The installation of all the new hardware isn’t very difficult. I did rearrange the hard drive trays so that everything was as low in the case as possible. I went with a laptop hard drive for the boot drive mainly because I wanted something with low power and not very large capacity wise. Ideally I should have bought a drive bay adapter, but this computer shouldn’t move from its current location. The SATA controller plugs into an empty PCI slot and the hard drives connect through regular SATA cables. Power comes from using some adapters that convert Molex connectors to SATA.

Finally the last thing to do is install OS X, in this case 10.5. I had contemplated running a variant of GNU/Linux, but most major distributions have dropped PPC support. There are still ways to get the most up to date versions of OSes like Ubuntu and Fedora, but that is more work then I wanted to put into this build. Yes, I have installed GNU/Linux on both my PowerMac and PowerBook before, but there were issues (especially getting booted up from the install media).

In the next post I will go into detail about the software I’m running.

Note: You may see the strike through above for my PowerMac’s video card. In initial testing I plugged a Kill A Watt up to see the power draw of the system. I was surprised to find the computer was drawing 200 watts of power both during idle and peak usage. That told me that 1. the computer’s power management isn’t very good with all the upgrades I’ve performed and 2. over the course of the year I would pay an extra $125 to power it. For fun I replaced the ATi Radeon 9800 Pro with the OEM NVIDIA Geforce 2 MX. The Kill A Watt said the computer was using 160 watts after the downgrade and equaled $25 in savings.

About two years ago I wrote a wiki article detailing how to setup a Newton to use Jabber as an instant messaging client for Yahoo, MSN, AIM, etc… Unfortunately that wiki no longer exists and the Internet Archive never backed up the pages. So I pulled out the old document I typed up and have reposted it here. I hope somebody finds it useful.

Background Information:
What is NewtonIM?
NewtonIM is an instant messaging client built to use the jabber client protocol. It was originally written by Jake Bordens, but also received some upgrades from Paul Guyot in 2005. The software still has a few bugs, but it is one of the best IM clients for the Newton.

What is Jabber?
Jabber is an instant messaging protocol based on the standards created by the XMPP Standards Foundations. Being an open standard, anyone can take and build own servers or clients of their own. This has made jabber instant messaging popular for not only the open source community, but also large corporations. Google’s instant messaging system, GoogleTalk, is based on jabber technology and Apple integrated jabber support into their iChat program with the release of OS X 10.4 “Tiger”.

One of the features of jabber is the ability to create transport plugins for servers. The transport plugin allows the jabber server to talk to other IM networks, such as AIM, MSN, Yahoo, IRC, ICQ, and more. So, you could register your yahoo account with the jabber server and be able to talk to your contact through a jabber client. The best way to think of this setup is to imagine a multi-protocol IM client (like Trillian and Pidgin), but the server is doing the work of connecting to the different IM networks. The jabber client just connects to the jabber server and communicates to everyone through the transport plugins. Confused?

What you will need:
A Internet capable Newton (preferably a MP2000 or 2100)
A computer with a jabber instant messaging client. The Instructions below describe how to use Miranda IM for PC and Adium for Mac

Setting up NewtonIM:

1. Choosing a Jabber Server
   The first step in getting NewtonIM to work is picking a server to register a jabber account with. A nice list of servers to start with can be found here. While relatively simple, you have to remember that there are hundreds of jabber servers but not all of them support the transport plugins for other IM networks. You will have to spend time looking for a server that supports the network you want.For the example in this guide I’m going to use the server called jabber.hot-chilli.net, located in Germany. It has transports plugins for all major IM networks and allows plaintext passwords (a requirement since the Newton can’t handle SSL).
2. (Mac)Adium: Create an Account
   1. Open Adium and cancel the setup assistant
   2. Open Adium’s Prefenences and go to the Accounts tab
   3. Click on the Plus sign button in the bottom left hand corner and choose Jabber 1
   4. Enter a username followed by the @ symbol followed by the name of the server (does not have to be the same as your MSN, AIM, etc accounts)
   5. Enter a password (does not have to be the same as your MSN, AIM, etc accounts) 2
   6. Go back to the Account tab and click Register New Account
      1. When you click the Register New Account button a new window will appear asking for the XMPP server address. Enter your server address
      2. Click the Request New Account button
      3. Confirm your username and password
      4. Click the Register button
      5. Click OK and return to the Accounts tab in Preferences

• (MAC)Adium: Register a transport service
  1. Open Adium
  2. Open Preferences and go to the Accounts tab
  3. Right click on your jabber account and choose Discovery Browser
  4. Expand the drop down list
  5. Find the transport you want to register with. NOTE: you want to register with the ones listed as “gateways”
  6. Double-click on the transport name and enter your IM information
  7. Click the register button
  8. Authorize and add the contacts to your jabber list
  9. repeat steps e through h to add MSN, Yahoo, AIM, and other contacts to your jabber list. Once complete you should be able to talk to all your friends from the jabber client on your computer
• (PC)Miranda IM: Create an Account
  1. Download and install Miranda IM
  2. Open Miranda IM
  3. Name your profile and click the Create button (the name you choose doesn’t really matter)
  4. Click on the plus sign in the bottom left hand corner to start adding an account
  5. Enter a name for the account, set the protocol to JABBER and click the OK button
  6. Highlight the newly created account and being entering your account information
  7. Change the Type to Public XMPP Network
  8. Enter a username for your jabber account (does not have to be the same as your MSN, AIM, etc accounts)
  9. Change the Server field to your preferred server
  10. Enter a password (does not have to be the same as your MSN, AIM, etc accounts)
  11. Click the Register new user button and confirm your password (a dialog box will confirm your account registration
  12. Click the OK button to close the Account window
• (PC)Miranda IM: Register a Transport Service
  1. Open Miranda IM. If the Import wizard launches, just cancel it
  2. Click on the Status menu and choose Online
  3. Click on the Status menu Navigate down to your Jabber profile’s Services… option and choose Service Directory
  4. In the Service Directory, choose the transport you want to use, right-click on it, and choose Register
  5. Enter the name and password for your IM account, and click the Register button
  6. Close the Service directory window and go back to your contact list
  7. All of your contacts will have a blinking icon. Double-click on each contact and Authorize them
• Install NewtonIM
  1. Go to Jake’s website and download the NIM.pkg package (there is a copy on UNNA, but I believe it is an older version)
  2. Install the package by your preferred method
• Configure NewtonIM
  1. Open the NewtonIM application
  2. Enter your username for you jabber account without the @jabber… Leave the password field blank (there is a bug related to the password and username field)
  3. Enter your server address
  4. Set the resource to whatever you like
  5. Click on the “i” icon and choose Save Prefs
  6. Close and reopen Newton IM
  7. Enter your password and click the Connect button

If you are able to connect, all your contacts that were listed on your computer will now appear in the contact list on your Newton.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there and get to messaging from your Newton. I haven’t tested it, but since Facebook chat uses the jabber protocol then you could potentially use Newton IM to talk with friends there.

Have fun. -Tony

Sorry everybody, the current theme, Fusion, may not be the last.

Like many people today I like to enjoy the hobby of photography. While I certainly won’t make a career out of the photos I take, getting outside hiking with a camera is a fun pastime. Whether it is one tree changing colors before the rest or seeing deer and turkeys run through the forest, there is always something to photograph. Last year I took the opportunity to upgrade from Canon Powershot A630 to the Nikon D3000. I have to say the change has been welcomed fun. All of the controls are easier to access through the screen settings and dials. The larger lenses and sensor allow more light to be collected and therefore clearer pictures. The zoom control of the lenses is precise so I can perfectly frame a shot.

If I have to criticize the D3000 for one thing it would be the provided neck strap. While hiking the neck strap will rub my neck badly and cause it to sweat. Overall it’s just uncomfortable. It’s a little difficult upgrading from a camera that will fit in a cargo pocket to one that s constantly hanging from my neck. There has to be a better solution.

Thankfully, the local camera store here in Louisville has provided me the answer in the name of the BlackRapid RS-4 camera sling. Instead of camera hanging from my neck, the sling allows the camera to hang to my side much like messenger bag. The RS-4 is designed so the camera can be quickly swung up to my face for shots then just as easily return to my side. No longer do I have to deal with the uncomfortable neck strap that came with the D3000. Another great feature the products from BlackRapid have is they work with almost any camera. From small point-and-shoots to large SLR or video cameras all I have to do is screw the provided fastener into the tripod socket found on the bottom the camera.

After several hiking trips to local parks and forests I couldn’t be happier with the Black Rapid RS-4. For anybody looking at replacing the neck strap, wrist strap, or any other strap on their camera I highly recommend checking out the products from BlackRapid.

http://www.blackrapid.com/

Have fun,
Tony

http://perishablepress.com/press/2008/02/18/quickly-disable-or-enable-all-wordpress-plugins-via-the-database/

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I wish there was a way to use my Newton on my phone or tablet?” Well now you can. For all of those Newton Users who have an Android device, you can now run the Einstein emulator.

Let me give you a little backstory. Back in 2005 Paul Guyot, a well-known and respected Newton programmer, released the first public version of his Newton emulator called Einstein. The original concept was to come up with a solution to make the Newton operating system hardware independent and possibly license the OS from Apple (1). That was going to open the way for new hardware and therefore keep the Newton platform alive. Unfortunately the project never got past the emulator step, but Paul continued to working and was able to build Einstein to run on OS X, Windows, and a few Linux tablets like the Nokia 770/800. In 2007 Einstein was released as open source software so other programmers could join in and help bring Newton OS to new devices. Once such programmer was Matthias Melcher (2).

Since 2007 Matthias has continued to work on Einstein to improve its speed, reliability, and functionality. 2011 has been particularly exciting because Matthias ported Einstein over to the iOS platform giving users the potential to run Newton OS on their iPhones and iPads. Unfortunately Apple rejected Einstein from being released in the App store and the iOS port is no longer being developed (3).

Now Matthias is working on an Android port of Einstein (4). An early build is available for download, but a lot of work still needs to be done to optimize the speed and reliability. Running the emulator on a Droid 1 is slow, but good enough to show off to friends. I personally can’t wait to see what happens to Einstein in the near future as devices get faster. What are you waiting for? Go dump the ROM off your Newton and get to emulating.

Have fun,
Tony

http://code.google.com/p/einstein/
(1) http://marc.info/?l=newtontalk&m=109452984605975&w=2
(2) http://marc.info/?l=newtontalk&m=118396241728586&w=2
(3) http://marc.info/?l=newtontalk&m=129745881308428&w=2
(4) http://matthiasm.com/einstein.html