Friday, 20 March 2009

iHearSafe - Earbuds and Headphones that prevent Hearing Damage from iPods etc


These earbuds and headphones can be used with any audio device and no matter how high the device volume is turned up, the volume level will always remain below 85 decibels and prevent damage to your hearing.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Sunday, 1 March 2009

The device "Generic volume" cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device later.


I don't know about anyone else but I'm sick of this problem, Windows seems to have many different flaws in this area.

Apart from the obvious reason that data could still be in the process of being written to the drive due to caching (depending on drive options), there are still many times where there has been more than sufficient time to have completed writing to the drive and it fails the first time but always works on the second attempt!

Now for those times when a retry fails (if that asn't annoying enough) you first need to look for open applications that may be referencing the drive, having explorer open viewing the drive will of course cause these sorts of issues. Start by looking at obvious processes and then start closing any open applications which you have used (since the last boot) to view the problematic device and then retry.

If that doesn't work then use the Sysinternal's "Process Explorer" (recommended task manager replacement) or its command line "handle.exe" can locate the process(es) holding the device open. For example, I used "handle t:" and it will say something like "explorer.exe pid: 4704 C: T:\".

You will find that "explorer.exe" sometimes holds directories open long after you have moved on to a completely different location, you will also find the root or desktop "explorer.exe" is frequently the problem (this requires you to stop and restart the desktop process (process explorer's "restart process" option makes this easy).

Yet another "explorer" bug is demonstrated with the image on the top right where "explorer" remains running (holding T: open) even though as a user I have closed it (and it has disappeared from view). I assume it has bugs in the handling of "/e" and/or "/root" command line switches.


Anyway I hope that helps. I can imagine that processes like acrobat reader (which can remain in memory after closing for a period of time) can also be the cause but you should now be capable of identifying your problem...


Friday, 27 February 2009

Camera Video Recorder Glasses like the EVR130

There have been a couple of time driving or riding my bike it would have been handy to have a camera for the incriminating evidence, at those times I also generally wear glasses, so it seems like a good idea to have contantly recording glasses where the camera always follows you!

I don't like that its only 1.3 megapixel, and uses the much slower USB 1.1, but still, it doesn't appear to be too expensive (and available on eBay), I'll keep my eye out on alternatives for now...

Here is an example of some captured video (best to right click, save as) which actually looks quite good.

From the web site:

The EVR130 is a 1.3 Mega Pixel Eyewear Camera/camera glasses/eyewear camera/video recorder/eyewear recorder/recording sunglasses with built-in 2GB Memory and Micro SD card slot.


1.3 mega pixels CMOS camera for clear digital recording Built in 2G memory for as long as 5 hours video recording With extended memory slot for TF/Micro SD card Sleek and elegant design suits for both men and women users A must equipment and highly recommended device for journalist, traffic police, travelers and etc Real time recording, never let memorable moments sneak away from life Easy connection with PC/Laptops by USB port, no driver needed User friendly operation button for easy control.

video glasses (lose the TV?)

Again not what I was looking for but this has to be the way of the future. 3D TVs will need glasses and once you have glasses why do you need the TV?

Most (but not all) actually look pretty ugly but that would not stop me!

I will do some more investigation when I get more time.

Hindsight cyclist's Glasses for "eyes in the back of your head"


I was looking for something else and found "hindsight" glasses which seem like they'd be great for cyclists (watch for idiots without needing to turn you head).

As the Nike site is garbage I won't bother to link to their site, in any case I assume there are other similar glasses that a google could uncover, I will have a good look later when I have more time...

Friday, 13 February 2009

No sound from Canon HD (or any) Video on BeyonWiz

Yet another movie/format that won't play on my BeyonWiz :-(

Whenever a movie or video won't play correctly it is almost always the sound that is missing, I can only think of one movie where the video didn't work.

I used to have a canon S2IS digital camera and the BeyonWiz couldn't play its video or audio, with my new SX1IS the BeyonWiz plays the video but loses the audio (an improvement I suppose)...

I have seen many instances where the BeyonWiz sees the audio channels and supports the codecs but still won't play the audio, however in this particular case of the SX1IS generated video (which vlc etc plays fine) the Beyonwiz reports 0 channels.

Unfortunately the manufacturers don't have any real bug resolution process or I'd be reporting it there.

I have attached a small 320x240 video demonstrating the issue for those with a BeyonWiz, I used this resolution to keep the video size small the same issue occurs in high definition (1920x1080). It can be downloaded for testing from here. I am using the latest firmware (01.05.280).

The images show what VLC reports (2 channel "sowt") as well as what the Beyonwiz shows (0 channel "AAC"). The Canon website for says my SX1IS generates: MOV (Image Data: H.264; Audio Data: Linear PCM monaural).

video



Thursday, 12 February 2009

TomTom Go 730 Firmware 8.301 kills "Operate my Go" functionality

Hi,

Well my first update of firmware (from 8.300) was only a few minutes ago and already I'm swearing :-)

They broke the TomTom Home "Operate my Go" functionality, you will probably get a message like "This function is not yet supported for your navigation device or operating system". At least I'm not the only one with the problem, hopefully will be fixed soon...

Anyway I didn't make a backup just before the firmware update and TomTom home doesn't prompt for one (another failing in my opinion).

I've only just realised that tomtom can't actually import contacts as claimed (at least from my Treo) so I'm not really happy with "them" right now...

Sunday, 1 February 2009

Using TYRE and Google Maps (or Earth) to create TomTom Itinerary Files and POI

The TomTom (like all small devices) is not ideal for doing complex things so I started wondering if there was an easy way to do route planning on the desktop and simply send the data to the GPS...


As the "TYRE" website says "Google Maps is a nice application. You can view any place on earth you like. A TomTom is a very nice device. You can go any place on earth you like. But why don't these tools work together?".


I thought it was going to be hard but I installed "TYRE" and told it I was using Google Earth. You can then simply use Google Earth to add placemarks ("pins") at all your stops.


As long as you have "TYRE" in "active" mode whenever you right click on a pin and select the "copy" (to clipboard) option "TYRE" will detect this and update its list of waypoints. It is a simple matter to alter their order.
You can save the data as a TomTom itinerary file, csv, POI and some other GPS formats. The data can also be sent to TomTom home, USB sticks etc.
I've only justy started using this application but its looking very good.

Saturday, 27 September 2008

Playing Movies from PC via BeyonWiz DP-S1

This describes how I got my BeyonWiz DP-S1 to play movies off my PC (USB attached portable enclosure). I had previously unsuccessfully tried getting a NAS drive to attach to the BeyonWiz and failed but have since found out it is known to be incompatible with it.

To start with the BeyonWiz is hopeless with its error messages and this is where all the problems come from, you never have a clue where its gone wrong.

This is my environment:


The first thing you should do is create a userid and assign it a password in Windows. I called mine "MultiMedia" and for added security made sure it was "Limited"), the account details need to be entered into the BeyonWiz "Windows Sharing" setup.

My USB attached drive with the movies is "T:" with my movied in the "T:\$Movies$" tree so I right clicked on "$Movies$" and opened the properties at the "Sharing" tab (simple networking must be turned off for the tab to appear).

You want to "Share this Folder", and I chose "MultiMedia" as the share name. I changed the share permissions by adding "MultiMedia" and giving it only read-access as I don't want to accidently have someone on the BeyonWiz (my daughter perhaps) deleting the movies. I also did the same for the file permissions ("Security" tab).

To get the BeyonWiz to attach to the PC you choose the "Scan" option (49% for the BeyonWiz means the same as 100% for normal people). If this fails there may be firewall or other issues, its worth trying the "Find PC" option, if this also fails, its worth knowing that the BeyonWiz needs to see visible share(s) on the PC for it to "find" the PC.

Up until now I don't think user names, passwords or user permissions matter at all, just that a PC with at least one share is visible. Now if you navigate into the share and see no files one of these items is likely to be incorrect. At this stage I don't think the BeyonWiz recovers very well so between tests remove PCs (yellow button) and rescan or find PC, I have also had to do this after setup so BeyonWiz share handling doesn't appear to be very "flash".

If you can't see eveything under the share (folders or files) check the permissions of these objects, when setting permissions on the "root" folder its best to go to the advanced tab and check "Replace permission entries on all child objects with entries shown here that apply to child objects" and click apply (then check again)!

While I was having problems I turned off my PC's software firewall as well as relaxed the hardware firewall in my router, at the end of the day it wasn't causing problems but thats an easy way to determine if they are the cause.

Now there appears to be a Windows Bug which will cause problems with sharing removeable drives, basically your share gets deleted after a reboot (Linux is looking better every day...). My solution was to:

  1. Create a batch file containing "net.exe share MultiMedia=T:\$Movies$".
  2. To handle reboots where the drive is attached (you may or may not have it permanently attached) create a shortcut to the batch file in the "Startup" folder to have it automatically launched at user logon.
  3. To handle cases where the drive wasn't connected at boot time, use Microsoft's "Tweak UI" tool to create an "autoplay" handler (look under "My Computer") and then edit the drives properties and choose the new handler for all content types. When testing this put a "pause" in the batch file as it took me a few goes to even get it to invoke the batch file, my command was: cmd.exe /c ""C:\SomeDir\Share_T_DRIVE.cmd" "%L""


Some resources:

Hopefully that has helped you! One other thing, I don't know if its required but after each failed test, I turned the BeyonWiz off then on to be 100% sure it was reset.

Monday, 22 September 2008

Download from BeyonWiz DP-S1 to PC with WizFX.exe

Since I had a bit of fun setting this up, I thought I'd document it to help others.

It all started because I wanted to create a DivX avi from a recording, one way is to copy the file to removable media and transfer it that way. This is time consuming and effectively locks up the BeyonWiz to only viewing live TV.

Once you have the files on the PC, the issue is the format that the BeyonWiz records in. I tried the "Add-Remove .ts" conversion tool (version 1.3.1), but it failed leaving me with a single ".ts' file with the end of the movie missing and the end of the movie located at the start (may have been other issues)! My guess is that this tool can't handle recordings that have been edited on the BeyonWiz.

Reading forums a bit I found people were using "WizFX" to point to a directory on the PC and convert it to a ".TS" that way. This worked perfectly for me.

I have since found that you can use "WizFX" to download over the LAN and convert to a single ".TS" file in one go. This is also slow but easier! It also doesn't lock up the BeyonWiz and you can use it as per normal operation (watch movies on HD and DVD etc). Hopefully the BeyonWiz will prevent me turning it off during a transfer (but I haven't tested this yet).

My hardware is:

  1. LinkSys WRT54GL router with Tomato "1.21" firmware (with MultiCast allowed).
  2. Netcomm NP285 HomePlug adapters (ethernet over power) for my remote connection to the BeyonWiz.
  3. BeyonWiz DP-S1 on firmware "01.05.261".

Now the hard part was finding the latest version of the tool as the binary available from the "Other" menu (for the "DP-S1") at the BeyonWiz Download Site is only version 1.0.1.4 and I knew that there was a 1.0.1.14 version somewhere. I found it in a zip called "WizFX_src.zip", select "Source Code" in the first control and then choose "WizFX source code" from the "other" menu. This zip contains the binary as well. Note that the exe's file properties do show the version number, but the programs "about" box doesn't (at least for me, it sounds like it does for some people)!

Anyway I also had trouble connecting to the "BeyonWiz" so to begin:

  1. Make sure the BeyonWiz is turned on!
  2. Make sure you have the "WinPNP" server enabled on the BeyonWiz. Take note of the configured port number.
  3. You need to work out or know the BeyonWiz's IP address and you should be able to ping this from the PC.
  4. As a final sanity check you can "contact" the server via "http://192.167.1.77:49152/index.txt" in a browser which should respond with some text that lists most of the recorded movies. That url is obviously an example, you should replace "192.167.1.77" with the real IP address of your BeyonWiz and if you have configured a different port you should also change "49152".
  5. When you first started the "WizFX.exe" program your software firewall may have prompted you for action. Hopefully you told it this program was a trusted application or at least allowed the request. If you disallowed it you may need to searh this setting out and fix it.
  6. Its possible that a (hardware) firewall in your router may give you some fun and mine may have as my "WixFX" can't "discover" the beyonwiz, I don't care I'm happy to set the IP address as I've made sure its static.
  7. Programs such as peer guardian could potentially be interfering, close them while you get things working.

At some stage I may use this information supplied to me by others to improve this:

Now for how to get the program connecting (where auto discovery clearly failing):


  1. Click on Favorite
  2. Click the "+" icon
  3. Type in the IP Address (and port if not default)
  4. Press Check Button
You should now be attached with the left pane showing the BeyonWiz info and the right showing the recordings (the the image, top right). You can right click on these recordings to select a download option. I use "Download TS file", this can also be made the default and then you can press the "Download" button.

Once you have a ".TS", it can be converted with "AutoGK", other tips and links: