gpsd bug in ITOS 2008

Huh.

I was trying to geotag a picture for the first time, but for some reason, the timestamp saved by gps-saver was exactly one day ahead, so no match was possible, of course. It turns out that ITOS 2008's gpsd, which gps-saver relies on, has a leap year bug until March this year. :-(

A fix is on the way, though, and the GPS unit itself is OK. Phew.

Meanwhile, I diddled the gps2photo source (part of gtag) to work around this bug (and another, involving undefined altitudes)... here you go. Just replace the one gtag installs in /usr/bin.

To run, I used

gtag -f gps.200802132236.1.log.gz -o tagged --credit "Alex Ibrado" --city Mandaluyong --state NCR --country Philippines --copyright "(c) 2008 Alex Ibrado" --keywords test *.jpg

and confirmed that these values were saved using

exiftool -a -u -g1 tagged/mypic.png

The GPS tags should also show up in any photo management software such as digiKam.

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Dinner with the new G

I'm having dinner right now at Fish & Co., publishing this through osgiliath via their free-to-customers WiFi. Right beside me is Laya, my new G...PS. :-P

It works inside, beside the glass walls. Here are a few shots (I cleared the GPS tracks):







...although I'm pretty sure I'm not moving at 3.5km/h or jumping up and down 30 meters. Hehehe...

I tried posting this via MaemoWordPy, but I haven't quite gotten the hang of it. The browser works fine anyway.

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Freedom Keychain GPS 2000

I went to the post office and picked up my Freedom Keychain GPS 2000 (bought from Proporta). It's a fascinating little device (1.81 x 1.26 x 0.58") that provides NMEA 0183 and other protocols over Bluetooth. It charges via the usual Mini5B USB, which is great as it means one less cable for me to bring along. USB and cigarette lighter cables are included in the package.

To test it out, I first paired it with osgiliath (my N800/ITOS2008), installed Maemo Mapper, then went to the roofdeck of my condominium. It worked pretty well, using 8 or 9 of the 12 satellites it tracked. I texted the bros with the coordinates and altitude, along with some quip about telling Cupid exactly where I was. :-P

I haven't put it fully through its paces yet, but so far, I was able to see my location on osgiliath using maps from Google Maps and OpenStreet that Maemo Mapper automatically downloaded for me. The street maps even had the street names on them!

My ultimate goal is to geotag my photos by saving my GPS path and matching the time the pictures were taken, i.e. move the SD from my cam to the N800 and run a script. I hope there's an existing app* for this already, but if not, it would make for an interesting project.

* UPDATE: HowToUseGPSFrameworkInOS2007 should work, though it needs a PC. Not sure if it is worth the effort (or even feasible) to port gtag's requirements to the tablet itself.

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Self-hosted Flash Video

Nowadays, the easiest way to upload videos to the web is via Google Video, YouTube, Metacafe, Vimeo, and the like.

If, for some reason, you want to host your videos on your own server, here are 4 steps to easily do this in Linux:

1. Convert your video using ffmpeg:
   ffmpeg -i your.avi -s 320x240 your.flv
   
   
2. Grab JW FLV Media Player and extract mediaplayer.swf
   
   
3. Upload your FLV file and mediaplayer.swf to your server.
   
   
4. Edit your HTML file to include something like this (one line):
   
   <embed src="mediaplayer.swf" allowfullscreen="false" allowscriptaccess="always" flashvars="&amp;file=your.flv&amp;autostart=false" height="240" width="320"></embed>
   
   or the more standards-compliant
   
   <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="mediaplayer.swf" width="320" height="240">
<param name="allowfullscreen" value="false" />
<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" />
<param name="flashvars" value="&amp;file=your.flv&amp;autostart=false" />
</object>
   
   Note that the latter is not viewable in the Nokia Internet Tablets.
   
   

You should end up with something like this:

Hosting your own videos allows you to avoid any branding that a third-party host might impose -- perfect for intranet/corporate use. You should also check out the various features, such as playlists, that JW FLV Media Player offers.

Enjoy!

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USB in ITOS 2008

Initially posting this via Maemo Blogger on osgiliath.

One of the most useful improvements in ITOS 2008 is the proper support for USB Host mode. Unlike previous versions where one had to jump through hoops to even get USB devices recognized, Host mode is now as simple as sending a value over to the appropriate /sys entry.

Here's a quick-and-dirty script which I simply call usb (compiled from various sources) that not only allows you to select between Host and On-The-Go (OTG) modes, it even allows for USB networking.

#!/bin/sh

MODE=$1
if [ "$MODE" == "net" ]; then
 LOADED=`lsmod | grep g_ether | grep -v grep`
 if [ "$LOADED" == "" ]; then
   insmod /mnt/initfs/lib/modules/2.6.21-omap1/g_ether.ko
   ifup usb0
 fi
 IP=`getip usb0 2>/dev/null`
 echo "IP is $IP"

elif [ "$MODE" == "file" ]; then
 ifdown usb0
 rmmod g_ether

elif [ "$MODE" == "host" -o "$MODE" == "otg" ]; then
 if [ "$MODE" == "otg" ]; then
   echo peripheral > /sys/devices/platform/musb_hdrc/mode
 fi
 echo $MODE > /sys/devices/platform/musb_hdrc/mode
 echo USB mode set to $MODE

else
 echo "Specify 'host', 'otg', 'net', or 'file'"
 IP=`getip usb0 2>/dev/null`
 if [ "$IP" == "" ]; then
   CUR=`cat /sys/devices/platform/musb_hdrc/mode`
   echo "Current mode is $CUR."
 else
   echo "Current mode is net, IP $IP"
 fi
fi

The helper script getip is just

#!/bin/sh

DEV=$1
if [ "$DEV" == "" ]; then
 DEV=wlan0
fi
IP=`ifconfig $DEV |head -2 |tail -1 |awk '{print $2}' |cut -d: -f2`
echo -n $IP

Basically, you just call it as usb host or usb otg; or as usb net or usb file. I haven't fully tested these scripts, but they work for me. YMMV.

Here's a shot of an N800 xterm showing my 12GB Devant HD, and the 2GB SD from my camera in a card reader. The df command was typed from a USB keyboard connected to the same powered hub. I used a cheap CA408 AF/AF USB adaptor from CDR King to connect the hub.

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It's my birthday, and I'll geek out if I want to...

Nokia 770

Nokia N800

Stowaway Keyboard

inMotion iM4
Today, having two birthdays, I turn 68. Halfy birthday to me! :-P

It's a long story, like I mentioned, one that begins with, Once upon a time, a slightly deaf functionary at the National Statistics Office jotted down the birthday of one Alex... Boring.

I'm not doing anything special today, having maxed out my celebrations over the weekend.* So, I'm introducing you to my two Nokia Internet Tablets (NITs), with which we'll hopefully have lots of fun in future posts.

Here's orthanc, a Nokia 770 running ITOS 2006 booted from its 2GB RS-MMC. Got it for about PHP 9K at Infomax in Megamall. It's currently with bro Togz for "one week", hehe.

And here's osgiliath, a Nokia N800 running ITOS 2008. It boots from the third partition of its internal 8GB SD; it also has a 16GB SD in its external slot. I've paired a ThinkOutside Stowaway Universal Bluetooth Keyboard with it (not shown). It's sitting on my Altec Lansing inMotion iM4, and is running KDE in the screenshot. I got it for about 16K via TipidPC.

Will I be getting an N810? Probably not, though the integrated GPS and keyboard are really tempting.

All for now.

* Eyan and sis Lea did treat me to a tasty and spicy hottttt Thai dinner last night. Thankeeee!

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