Chaucery Blog

Australian networks have been broadcasting in high definition for many years, but prior to 2008 they were not allowed to show content that differed from their standard definition counterparts. This year they've been slowly introducing new content to their HD channels, and the crucial moment for me occurred when Ten announced that the second season of Torchwood would only be shown on Ten HD. Without spending any money on a new HD PVR could I see Torchwood? After briefly trying an inconvenient PC-based solution I settled on a nice way of using my SD Toppy PVR.

Solution 1 - PC TV-Tuner card

I already have a very underused high definition digital TV tuner card in my PC. However, I don't like to leave my PC on when I'm not using it, so recording Torchwood would require me to break that habit. I'm especially unkeen to leave it on when I'm away for a week or two on holiday. Anyway, I tried this for a week. After saving the file my PC was busy for an hour converting it to DivX so that I could more easily watch it via a laptop attached to my TV. This added to the overall inconvenience, and I certainly wouldn't want to do that regularly.

Solution 2 - SD Toppy + laptop

My second, much improved solution, is centred on my existing SD Topfield 5000PVRt. It is based on the fact that a PVR has two distinct elements. Firstly, it sucks the digital bitstream out of the air and stores it on its hard disk. Secondly, it decodes the bits into an image for display. Now, although my PVR was purchased some years ago, and does not have the ability to display HD channels, it can quite happily record these channels.

If you switch the Toppy to an HD channel it will display a blank picture, and pop up a message about being unable to show the HD or encrypted signal. However, you can set a timer for that channel, either manually or through the EPG. You can even get some idea of what you've recorded by playing the file at anything other than normal speed. Backwards at 1x, or forwards at 2x are probably most useful. That allows you to view the top left quarter of the HD show, in silence.

Naturally, you will now want to watch the HD show. This can be done by using an external computer as the decoder. I connect an eeePC via USB and copy the program across. Unfortunately, the Toppy's USB port is not fast enough to stream the HD in real time (even using Deadbeef's USB accelerator patch). Actually, Altair is probably just fast enough in turbo mode, but Altair locks the file until it's finished. The alternative is Aldarin's FTP Server for Topfield, which doesn't lock the file, but is too slow for streaming, even in turbo mode. My favoured solution is copying the file across using Altair in its entirety before I want to watch it, then viewing it using VLC.

I now have some breathing space before I need to purchase a dedicated HD PVR. I can watch HD-only programs on my SD television via my SD PVR with the assistance of a (borrowed) eeePC. This was only possible because of the highly extensible nature of the Topfield 5000PVRt, and is yet another reason that people love their Toppies!

Clock radios have tended to be the most reliable of electronic devices in my life. Until a few weeks ago I had possessed just two. The first was a repurposed micro hi-fi system, which set the bar high for sound quality in subsequent clock radios. It was abandoned when the alarm setting button stopped responding, and was replaced with a high-end (for a student) Akai clock radio, the CR 5000.

Last month the Akai started playing subtle tricks on me, such as gaining one hour during the course of a night, leading me to prepare for work an hour early. Over the following nights it got worse, sometimes gaining one hour per hour and going off at 4am instead of 9am. It also started to refuse to be turned on manually, so it had to go.

I naively assumed that the march of technology would have brought costs down and increased features in the world of clock radios in the ten years or so since I bought the Akai. It cost $50 or $60, so I was expecting to find something for a similar price but perhaps with digital tuning. What I found was a disappointingly bland collection of identically-styled 80's-fashioned clock radios from the major brands, a more interesting variety from the no-names, and far above my price range were the quality devices.

My requirements for a satisfactory clock radio are basically a description of the Akai's features:

• AM/FM radio
• two alarms
• wake to radio or alarm
• progressively increasing volume of alarm (Akai called this their Progressive Audio System and Sangean call it a Humane Waking System). Rather than having a heart-attack each morning the alarm gets incorporated into your dreams until it attains a volume to wake you. The steadily increasing volume makes it impossible to ignore for long.
• Easy-to-read digital clock, visible day and night from across the room, and with auto-dimming so it doesn't light up the whole room at night
• Decent speaker(s), avoiding the tinny sound from tiny speakers
• Non-hideous (ie. vaguely modern) design

For the princely sum of $30 I came up with the (superseded, but available at Dick Smith) Philips AJ3225. Its single speaker is a bit too small and tinny (which is not unexpected given its output power of 100mW versus the Akai's 2 x 1W speakers), and the rotary tuning is nigh-on impossible to read. It also lacks an auto-dimmer and progressive alarm.

The Philips lacks the size and weight of the Akai, and has lower sound quality because of it. It also has smaller, more inconveniently located buttons, which is important for dopey morning pressers.

In my research I found that manufacturers have been moving on to clock radios incorporating iPod docks. These tend to have good speakers. However, they often lack AM radios, and also use backlit LCD displays rather than LEDs. Although this may be good for displaying iPod information it makes the clock difficult to read at night or from a distance. Perhaps LEDs are just too old-fashioned. All of these notes apply well to the TDK iCubic. I liked the TDK's design so much that I would have happily ignored the clock legibility issues, but the lack of AM made it useless to me.

I also liked the OLED display and mirror finish of the Philips AJ3230, but the upright design would get too easily knocked over in my slumber, and its speaker again has too little power. The Philips iPod docks have the power, but lack AM.

Perhaps DAB+ will become popular in Australia. Then I would move on from AM, manufacturers would move on from FM, and together we would find the ultimate clock radio.

The combination of new technology with the potential to save money is irresistible to me, so I have gone naked. From reading forums it seems that the main reason that people are hesitant to switch, in Australia at least, is because of the inconvenient switching process, which involves the loss of broadband and telephone a period of up to 20 working days. Here's how my switch occurred:

Sun 10th	Ordered Naked DSL on website
Mon 11th	Received email acknowledgment of Naked DSL request
Thu 14th	ADSL stopped working
Mon 18th	Received email advising that telephone would be switched over on Fri 22nd
Fri 22nd	By 9am the phone had stopped working. When I returned from work and plugged in the modem/router at 6pm the ADSL was back. No phone.
Mon 25th	Received email with my new VoIP details. My modem/router/VoIP box said my account did not exist on the VoIP server, so I used a mobile phone to contact my ISP. They spent 10 minutes fixing something at their end, and I finally had a working telephone at 7pm.

Total broadband down-time: 9 days
Total phone down-time: 4 days

As my phone now connects to my modem instead of to a wall socket, and my modem is not near my phone, I had to do some rewiring to join them. Although I had plenty of spare telephone cables I didn't have any cable connectors. Luckily, ADSL filters, of which I have a surfeit, are a suitable substitute.

The final element of this journey is to discover if I do actually save money, and I'll need a few months of data to determine that.

Warning: stop reading now if you get easily annoyed. In theory the broadband and telephone downtime could be almost completely eliminated. The physical process of switching to Naked DSL simply involves moving a wire in the telephone exchange from one port to another. My ISP has stated informally that this should be a 10 minute operation. However, the company in control of the exchange earns a lot less money from Naked DSL than standard DSL users, so it's in their interests to dissuade people from switching. They therefore have a procedural hurdle for ISPs, and therefore their customers, to cross.

1. ISP sends request for wire to be disconnected. After about a week technician is sent to exchange to remove wire.
2. When ISP has been informed that wire is disconnected they are allowed to apply for the wire to be reconnected to a different port. After another week a technician (perhaps the same one) is sent out to the telephone exchange to reconnect the wire.

Apparently protestations are being made to the relevant authorities, with the potential for this process to be much faster in future.

The figures are a bit rubbery, but there's no doubt that there was a drastic reduction in the population of Europe from the middle of the fourteenth century, much of it due to the Black Death.

I bought a new Billion 7401VGPM ADSL modem/router last week. My old Billion 741GE has performed admirably for many years, but I felt it was time to move up to ADSL2+ (from ADSL1), WiFi and VoIP.

The new ADSL standard immediately increased my internet connection speed from 5.5Mb/s to 8.5Mb/s, though if I hadn't looked up the numbers I probably wouldn't have noticed the difference. Of more importance, this is my first wireless access point, so I can finally play Nintendo DS games against non-CPU opponents, and download a plethora of extra puzzles for Picross and Professor Layton. Finally, VoIP will be necessary if I decide to save money by dropping my phone line rental and going Naked.

Unfortunately, the Nintendo DS only supports wireless security up to the insecure WEP standard. As a consequence I wanted to only have the WiFi turned on when I was playing. The router provides a web interface for turning the WiFi on and off, but I was after a one (or zero)-button solution. Luckily, the router also provides a telnet server to allow access to all of its functionality. With the right tools, scripting telnet is a doddle.

I first looked for a free telnet client that provided scripting support. Amazingly, my old favourite from ten years ago was still going strong - Tera Term, though with a new developer and in new Open Source clothing. I quickly came up with a simple script that with a click of a button would tell me if WiFi was on or not, and offer to change it.

;  Telnet login

; open Tera Term
connect '192.168.1.254:23 /nossh /v'

; set username
UsernamePrompt = 'Login:'
Username = '[USERNAME]'
PasswordPrompt = 'Password:'
Password = '[PASSWORD]'

; login
wait   UsernamePrompt
sendln Username

wait   PasswordPrompt
sendln Password

; OK, auto login complete.

finish = 0  
while finish = 0 
	call getstatus
endwhile
sendln 'user logout' 
end

:getstatus
flushrecv
sendln 'port wireless status'
waitln 'Disable'
strscan inputstr 'false'
if result <> 0 then
	beep
	yesnobox 'Wi-Fi is active\n\nTurn off?' 'Wi-Fi Status'
	if result then
		sendln 'port wireless set Disable true'
	else
		finish = 1
	endif
else
	strscan inputstr 'true'
	if result <> 0 then
		yesnobox 'Wi-Fi is turned off\n\nTurn on?' 'Wi-Fi Status'
		if result then
			sendln 'port wireless set Disable false'
		else 
			finish = 1
		endif
	else
		messagebox 'Wi-Fi status not found' 'ERROR'
		finish = 1
	endif
endif
return

That was okay, but I wanted some additions that weren't possible in Tera Term. Specifically, I wanted to set the WiFi to be turned off after some user-defined time, and I wanted the WiFi status to be shown by an icon in the Windows tray. This would require a proper programming or scripting language.

I first looked at Perl. For simplicity of coding the telnet interaction it looked like a winner:

use Net::Telnet; 
$telnet = new Net::Telnet ( Timeout=>10, Errmode=>'die' ,Prompt => '/admin> $/i'); 
$telnet->open('192.168.1.254'); 
$telnet->login('[USERNAME]', '[PASSWORD]'); 
print $telnet->cmd('port wireless status');
$telnet->cmd('user logout');
$telnet->close();

However, my other requirements looked like they could be more easily solved in C# (and give me an excuse to play with Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express). Interestingly, although the .Net framework seems all-encompassing, it doesn't have a nice Telnet wrapper. For this I turned to a nice free wrapper called C#Telnet. Whilst not as simple as Perl, it was pretty close.

As I wanted the WiFi to be turned off automatically even if the computer running this script was in standby I wanted to use Windows built-in Scheduled Tasks, as these allowed for waking the computer from standby. Again, interacting with scheduled tasks isn't part of the .Net framework, so this time I called on the Task Scheduler Library, which worked a treat.

Once all the libraries were in place the coding was straightforward. The last piece of outside help was to use some GPL icons from Lullabot, so my tray icon could take on different colours indicating if the WiFi was on, off, or scheduled to be turned off.

As this is a project customised for me alone there wouldn't be much point in releasing my finished program. I may produce a more general version one day.

The moral of this story is that tinkerers like me love hardware such as the Billion that provide easily scriptable interfaces.

Vidalia and Privoxy often run together, but if you don't have them both running all the time then it's convenient to get Vidalia to start Privoxy automatically when Vidalia itself has been started. (As a side benefit, this will also cause Privoxy to be stopped automatically when Vidalia is exited.) This can be accomplished via an option on the General tab of Vidalia's settings, where you can choose to Start a proxy application when Vidalia starts.

If you only set the Proxy Executable to point to privoxy.exe then it won't work because Privoxy will complain about being unable to find its settings. This is because it's looking for its config file in the Vidalia directory. You can fix this by adding a Command Line Argument consisting of the full path to the config file, eg. "C:\\Program Files\\Vidalia Bundle\\Privoxy\\config.txt"

However, Privoxy still won't start, because the config file will, by default, look for its "child" config files in the wrong place. So, the final thing to change is to edit Privoxy's config.txt to set the confdir to the full path of Privoxy, eg. confdir C:\Program Files\Vidalia Bundle\Privoxy

All of this fiddling could be avoided if Vidalia understood shortcut files. The shortcut would let you set the directory that Privoxy would be run from, and would also let you start Privoxy minimised.

Note that Vidalia and Privoxy are both multi-platform packages, but my instructions are for Windows only.