Biostar Board: Two devices one IDE port

Gist: If all BIOS option and all configurations in the 40 Pin and 80 Pin cables fail, try using the jumpers.

I got a Biostar N68S3B for a HTPC which I wanted to build with very old hardware, to cut a long story short, I had two IDE devices (a DVD drive, and a IDE Hard Disk) and only one port. I have largely only worked with SATA devices so I had to do a little research on how to get it to work, it is possible to get two IDE devices sharing the same Bus with a Master\Slave arrangement.

First off there are two types of IDE cable, 80-pin and 40-pin, I had both, the 80 pin connected my HDD and the 40 Pin connected my DVD drive to my erstwhile motherboard.

The main difference between an 80 Pin and 40 Pin cable is the one pin that is blocked in an 80 Pin cable (this is done so that the cable is installed with the right orientation). Now the IDE is supposed to recognize Master\Slave based on position of the cable (The cable has three connectors, the lowest one goes to the board and the two which are close together go into two devices).

1. 40-Pin: The Master device goes into the middle connector and the Slave goes into the end.
2. 80-Pin: The Master goes into the end connector and the Slave to the middle.This cable is also color coded, the blue end goes into the mobo, the grey end into the master.

While adding the devices to the cables I had to move the DVD drive closer to the HDD as the cable length is quite small. These were all the configs I tried:

1. 40 Pin connector with DVD as master and HDD as slave and vice versa: The bios didnot detect the Slave in both cases and booted from the master, booting from the HDDresulted in a BSOD in XP.
2. 80 Pin connected with DVD as master and HDD as slave and vice versa: same result asabove.
3. I tried force detection by defining which device was a master and which was slave(assigning type in BIOS IDE section), this resulted in a POST error.
4. Disabled SATA on the BIOS completely, no effect.

After tinkering a lot with the BIOS, I decided to give the jumper pins (pictured below) a try, turns out LG (the DVD drive manufacturer) does not follow standards with the jumper positions, after two trials, it turned out the pushing the cap on the middle jumper pins configured the DVD Drive as a Slave. After this the IDE drives worked.

Using the N900 (or any linux machine) to control windows applications like iTunes

First of all the possibilities of the technique described here are limitless, you can literally control all aspects of the Windows environment (remote and local) from the phone or any linux machine, including organizing your videos automatically to managing remote SQL Servers, this opens up everything.

I have been looking for a decent remote control for iTunes for a long time, but I haven't been able to find one (on Symbian I used the Salling Clicker), few days back I stumbled on a way to do it via the terminal on Maemo, so here goes..

First off powershell on windows can control a lot of applications (which expose their API to PS, in case of itunes the scripting interface is exposed), the code for doing this on PS is:

$rr = new-object -com itunes.application
$rr.play()
$rr.pause()
$rr.newttrack()

There are a ton of other functions that I am still exploring, these are the basic ones that should get you started..

Now getting to the interesting part, how to open up the interface, simple, SSH, the most versatile remote terminal, just install the package openssh on the N900 (first add the development repositories, or testing too) then use:

sudo gainroot
apt-get install openssh

This should install the SSH client as well as the server (yes you can connect to the phone from Putty or a native linux terminal).

Next you need the powershell server from here, its free, install it on your PC, run 'Start Server' and click start server (play button).

On your phone do the following:

ssh @ipaddress
password:

That's it! You are in, absolute control!

My post on TMO.

Munnabhai MBBS: A Non-Medieval Review

I saw Munnabhai MBBS after a long time again, this time via centrist-modern eyes. When I saw the same movie as a child I just saw it as a harmless comedy movie, and the fact that so many adults around me endorsed and praised the film is appalling to me now. I shudder to think about all the other Indian movies, which must be portraying negative values, sexism (bordering on misogyny) to Indians.

The entire movie seems to be anti-modern. Some examples include, the way the protagonist seeks the affection of the deans daughter, "I think I like you, therefore I assume you will like me and find me acceptable, and I will speak to your dad". What about what she thinks? Is that solely governed by what her father thinks. In another instance, a kid who is suicidal is "taught" by Munna, that women are objects in a barrel of fish, and he may dive in anytime and have his fill. And one more, a guy with cancer is "taught" that he should spend his remaining time ogling at strippers and generally treat women as objects.

The female protagonist (Chinki), in order to spurn Munna's affections, and to stymie his further moves asks one of her friends to pretend being her and "scare" Munna. She dons a provocative dress and dances with a few guys and this "scares" our hero. The woman he is supposed to like is "indecent", I quote from the film here, Munna "advices" the father after meeting his "promiscuous" daughter, "You should keep your daughter under control, I can understand that you are a single father, but still" and this was accepted as "decent". Shouldn't a woman choose who she marries or dates? Or what clothes she wears? She is not property. Does she have no will?

The whole movie oozes bad values. In order to gain admission Munna kidnaps a doctor's father (and plays carrom with him, to paint a rosy picture I guess), who should be terrified, and gets the doctor to write all his exams for him, under severe duress. This endorsement of "chalta hai, side se le lo" is rife in Indian pop-culture. Most people are swayed by this and believe that if a man should be "accomplished" (buttload of money) he should be willing to grease rails all over and perform all sorts of misdeeds, and this we see in practice (scams anyone).

It is the rallying call of media everywhere that the Middle-Class must participate in politics, however I am of the opinion that what is reflected in our government now is what we are (the majority at least), we all believe one may do anything to get ahead (and in the process elbow each other into the ground), we all participate in and propagate these ills via our day-to-day behavior, and at the end of the day if we go to the temple to wash our sins (break a few coconuts, pay some money, again) "god" has forgiven us and we can retain our holier than thou status.

It is this, I am always right, our ancestors were always right attitude that should scare any sane person. You need to witness this brand of arrogance to understand it, Glenn Beck is not even close. We believe our ancestors were mathematical geniuses (and slave traders on the side, we forget that), we believe they achieved "divinity" long back, all we need to do is interpret it from shlokas. Many of us believe, the entire western civilization is copied from us, and that we were fantastically rich and living in a utopia(with slaves!!) before Vasco came and disturbed us.

System Tools 2.20: Malware/Virus

I just had my first scary encounter with malware in Windows 7 (was used to it XP), shattering the illusion of Windows 7 being secure in fell swoop.

Origins: This installs via a Javascript

Symptoms: No taskmanager, no cmd, no run as administrator, cant install stuff, control panel access (basically you are screwed) and a message keeps popping up that some file is infected followed by a prompt to enter your credit card number and BSOD.

Solution:
1. Boot into linux (even via live cd), mount your C:\, go to Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\
2. Open the exe in Open Office Writer.
3. Cut any string and paste it somewhere else in the file (to keep the same size but change it to prevent it from installing)
4. Boot in windows and voila
5. Additionally (after all this) you can do this:
http://www.techjaws.com/how-to-remove-security-tool-virus/

USB OTG/Hostmode N900

The N900 was recently granted USB hostmode by MohammedAG and Team (thanks a ton guys), this opens a whole realm of possiblities. First off the requirements:

I bought the following adapter:

EBay India

Then Install "Enhanced Kernel" v45 from your application manager.
Reboot your phone (should not be connected to PC!!), upon rebooting you will be greeted by a terminal, hit any key and type "run noloboot" quickly. Once booted install H-E-N (note you would need to enable extras devel repo on your app manager). Once installed connect the adapter to you PC cable, and connect any storage device). Click on High Speed USB, the on VBUS on, finally on enumerate, your device light should get on, if it does not the Kernel is to blame.

Once that is done click on "Mount" and the device should show up in you file manager (if it does not as it did with me, go to the terminal, type "root" and "mkdir /media/flash", "mount /dev/sda1 /media/flash", it should show up then)

I also tried a Logitech MK250 Wireless mouse+keyboard, inorder to get this working you will additionally need Blue HID from app manager, once installed reboot phone and connect the wireless reciever, the keyboard would work, and to get the mouse cursor, just fo to app menu and run "mousecursor". It should show up. BE WARNED: Scrolling behavoiur will change in browser after this.

Now run along and hack away!!

Palm Games on the N900!!

For those of you living under a rock, the one place where the N900 was lacking has been filled, i.e good commercial games. As of now almost all Palm WebOS (a platform which has EA and gameloft on board) work unchanged on n900, for instruction visit here, and to get all games (for those of us living where webos based phones don't sell) , try this (ill be seeding it for a long time). Cheers and game on!!

Nokia N900, My Preciousssss

I haven't had time to update this blog for the past few months, the main reason for this has been my (at times torrid) affair with the piece of silicon and plastic created in the fires of Mount Doom. Ok a bit of history, my first smartphone was the 6600 (I am used to carrying bulky black bricks), that phone consumed an entire summer break, I was obsessed with doing everything I could to make maximum use of it, configuring it as a webcam (although I had a 256 kbps line at that time), running N-gage games, writing python scripts for it etc etc. Then the iPhone came along with the obsession with touch, and my trusty 6600 crash and burned in a washing machine (I mourned for a few months), so I decided to have a fling with Esopos take on the iPhone, the 5800.

The first day with that phone was a brutal shake, the certificate manager denied access to almost all sis files I attempted to install, and then it occurred to me, Nokia wanted me to go to the Ovi store and shop for my siss. I was shaken (although I got through the certificate managers, still having to do so hurt me), hardware-wise the phone did not disappoint, although the speed of the phone paled when compared to ANY adversary.

After a year of this sham I was exhausted and wanted to move on, I had locked my sights on Android, but I always had a fleeting paranoia about google (which was proven correct later on) (yes I know I am blogging on google, but I will not surrender to the overlords when they come for me), just out of sheer morbid curiosity I checked out the N900 (also I had just chucked my laptop for a desktop, finally, so I needed a portable computer), I was infatuated by its first and only advertisement, that is around the time I came to the realization that I loved tinkering more than the results, and that was all I expected out of a device. Over the next month I thoroughly went over maemo.org and was swept away at the almost Thor like power of the device, it was everything I wanted.

After a week I went to the Nokia priority store, the phone was outta stock, after a few more days of waiting (I HATE waiting for something I really want), I finally got it. I wasn't able to get myself away from it even for a few minutes, I was commited for ever. Earlier I mentioned torrid, this would be because sometime negative posts on maemo.org would get me down, and I would join the dissenters, but then something new would surface and I would be lost again.

Here is a list of stuff (that I remember) I have done to BlackBird (my name for her):

0. Controlled my Air Conditioner (Had lost the remote)
1. Installed Android and dual booted (lotta games).
2. Installed Ubuntu and dual booted.
3. Programmed the phone via FrankenCamera and wrote some code to click the perfect pics, I was able to control stuff like exposure time, aperture speed etc. Lot of fun.
4. Installed Meego via u-boot.
5. Got palm games working (full 3D openGl games).
6. Quake 3.
7. Flashed her a coupla times.
8. Currently coding a coupla apps on QT.
9. VNCed to my PC.
10. Used TV out to watch few movies at home. (next I am going to attempt using pen drives, and connecting a bluetooth mouse and keyboard and use it as a TRUE computer)
11. Wrote some scripts for good backups.
12. Boosted the FM transmitter.
13. Skype video calling (The Indian SS want to ban it, to them I say #@!$ you)
14. Used it as a webcam via gstreamer.
15. Streamed music from it via Gst.
16. Used it as a hearing aid by sending mic signals to earpiece.
18. Wrote scripts for sync.

I cannot begin to describe or fathom the mammoth potential of the device, I am never restricted by the device, only by imagination. Waiting for 3G to truly unleash it.

I have convinced myself that this is the best phone ever and the last of the free as in free speech type device (cause Nokia will try to lockdown meego), so I have been contemplating buying another one and locking it in a safe in case of apocalyptic like situations (or what happened to my 6600).