If you’ve been a regular user of the Interactive LED Sign here at operation 9—and there have been many thousands of you since the beginning of 2009—you may be wondering what happened; it’s been down for a couple of months now, after all. Well, there’s a story to that.

After moving from Windows XP Pro (SP3) to Windows 7 Ultimate x64, things started getting hairy given the control 7 likes to have over its ports. Not only that, the “upgrade” path—or rather, the lack of one—wiped the server environment. While I was able to get all that patched up, something else inevitably happened early last month: the PC’s motherboard up and died a few days after being laid off from my job of nearly 5 years, rendering the machine inoperative for a few weeks. Unfortunately, the replacement motherboard doesn’t have a serial port on-board, which means I need to shell out a few bucks to buy one to occupy an open card slot. Not a big deal, really, but I’ve been concentrating my efforts on gainful employment in the meantime.

So, to make it short and sweet, it’ll be back sooner or later. Don’t fret.

If you’re interested in setting up your own interactive LED sign, don’t forget to check out Alphabrite. Not only is it being used by nerdy enthusiasts like myself, several have written to let me know they’ve integrated it into their internal corporate environment. Not bad for an application whose 1.0 release was written in the span of a week.

Donations to fund further development are, as always, graciously accepted.

One of the more useful shields for the Arduino I picked up in the last month has to be Seeed Studio’s Solar Charger Shield. Costing $10.50, I couldn’t pass it up. I put together a quick demonstration using a solar panel I parted out of some sub-$10 solar chargers I bought on eBay and a 2000mAh Lithium-Ion battery pack I received as part of Sparkfun’s Free Day.

Do pardon the intermittent squeaking; granite countertops and header pins don’t mix.

Version 1.0 of Alphabrite LED Display Control Center—or, simply enough, Alphabrite v1.0—is ready for download. This application allows remote or local administration of your Alpha or Betabrite LED Display using PHP4 and 5 with the cURL extension. The application supports every sign that adheres to the Alpha 1.0 Protocol. (See README for more details.)

Available Modules:

• Public Interaction: Interface your LED sign to the Internet through your website. By only embedding two lines of code, you’ll have everything you need on the front-end to accept feedback—without interrupting the flow of your other active modules. Includes optional notification of messages by email and/or to its own Twitter feed.
• Stock Quotes: Define the stocks you want to watch and keep tabs on them through the ticker. (Stock quotes are on a 20-minute delay, so DON’T use it for determining whether to execute a trade.)
• Weather: Get Current Conditions for your ZIP code, as well as Local Forecasts for two days out.
• RSS Feeds: Define your feed and scan whatever headlines you feel like staying abreast of.
• Twitter Recapping: Create an account for your sign on Twitter and, in combination with the Public Interaction module, display both current and archived messages sent to your sign. Or, if you prefer, display your personal feed instead.
• Time/Date Display & Synchronization: For those, like me, without proper serial clock chips inside their Alpha or Betabrite unit, these functions will both display and regularly synchronize your time and date (on supported models).
• Basecamp Integration*: If you’re a user of Basecamp by 37signals, keep track of the latest activity through this module. Especially useful for Project Managers.
• IMAP Inbox Check*: Check how many unread messages you have, and how many messages you have total. This is pre-set to Gmail for your convenience.

Hardware Functions Provided:

• Set Date/Time, Set Day of the Week, Set Time Format, Schedule Messages, Speaker On/Off, Generate Tone, Clear Priority Message (A0), Clear Non-Priority Memory (page or entirely), Soft Reset, Set Sequence (Data Reset), Update Sequence (Data Refresh)
• Includes the PHP RS-232 method (alphawrite.php), which requires the fantastic and included ‘php_serial.class.php’ by Rémy Sanchez (http://hyperthese.net/).
• Furthermore, unit resets and refreshes can be automated via a simple crontab (or its Windows equivalent) using the provided utilities.

This was tested on an Alpha PPD220—a two-line, red LED display by Adaptive Displays. Should you run into any problems, please submit them here.

* See the README for important details and security caveats involved with the utilization of these modules.

Download: Alphabrite v1.0 (97kb, zip)

If you use and/or like what you see, consider clicking here to help fund further development.

With my other LED reverse-engineering project waiting on a cable, I picked up an Alpha PPD220 (Personal Priority Display) LED Sign—probably the most basic model there is in their product line—off eBay at about 15% of the MSRP. (I’d prefer a Alpha 4160C, but I’m pretty sure the WAF (wife acceptance factor) wouldn’t permit it.)

Telling by the message that was still in its memory when I powered it on, this particular LED sign used to serve as a display at a lottery terminal somewhere in South Carolina. Within an hour or so of hacking away on some code from these guys, however, I was able to interface it using PHP and Perl—the latter posing as the messenger with the RS-232 serial interface—to accept messages from the public at large.

So, with that done, it was time to improve upon it. In between moments of helping my wife recover from all four of her wisdom teeth being pulled, I decided to build a library (from scratch) for the sign. Because of the shared protocol, the library I have in development should work with most, if not all Alpha and Betabrite models from Adaptive Displays, but I really can’t test that to verify beyond this basic little unit.

Here’s a bit of what it does in its current state:

• Supports the Alpha 1.0 protocol mostly, with a little (untested) 2.0 and 3.0
• Accommodates both paged sequences (AA-AZ) and PRIORITY Text (A0)
• Synchronizes the system clock on the unit with the server automatically
• Pulls in RSS feeds using Simplepie
• Pulls in Current Weather and the Local Forecast via Yahoo’s API
• Allows people visiting my site to enter messages without interrupting the flow of information (news, weather, time, etc.)
• Added basic administrative functions (soft reset, speaker on/off, clear memory, etc.)
• Added the ability to update a Twitter account with the last submitted message from the web. Sad.
• Added the ability to notify me by email when someone submits a message. Doubly sad.
• Updates every hour on the hour via a crontab which refreshes all the data

There’s still a lot of work to be done to maximize its utility (and for me to be comfortable enough to release it), but I’ll get to it as time permits. As it is, it’s become something far more useful than displaying lottery numbers and jackpot totals.

Want to give it a whirl? Feel free to check the sign out over here and drop a note while you’re at it.

Seth Fogle has an interesting write-up about the hackability of Axis cameras, in this case the 207W. I can personally confirm that the 206M also falls for the exact same exploits, which likely means the entire 206/207 line is at risk and perhaps even the 205 (which I haven’t been able to confirm, but they share much the same if not exactly the same platform if memory serves me correctly).

As I also have an Axis 2120, I was originally led to the above by a great CNet article highlighting the fact that many government agencies and other organizations still make use of the 2100 model which, like my 2120, has long since been discontinued (and can be often found on the aftermarket still, on sites such as eBay). Axis said in the article they were working to patch the model, but a check on their site tonight still displayed the last available firmware as 2.43—last updated in 2004.

Since I’m not insane enough to expose the 2120 to the Internet at-large, I’m not all that worried. However, what these two generations of cameras share is a weak system open to XSS attacks and a lack of security foresight to use encryption to protect the system from backdoor exploitation. Then again, it’s not as if everyone who buys them even knows the basics of configuring them, rendering advanced attacks unnecessary to begin with.

As it stands right now, it would appear that Big Brother-esque camera systems are potentially far less secure than the governments implementing them might think. Very, very interesting findings indeed.

Ok, this is awesome. A computerized BBQ gadget that keeps things nice and toasty — not to mention consistent. Here’s what one happy customer on Make had to say about this newfangled tech:

“The device is amazing. I used it earlier in the week to do a 17 hour cook of a pork leg. The Stoker maintained temperature within a few degrees of 210 for all 17 hours without a problem. Awesome.”

Awesome, indeed. Taking this gadget from mere utility into the land of pure geekdom, well, this just blows my geek mind:

The best part is that the Stoker will happily grab an IP address via DHCP if you plug an ethernet cable between it and your home net. You can subsequently control target temperatures, high/low alarms, food alarms and other parameters remotely.

Seriously, this is the kind of gadget everyone can enjoy. Well, except geeks, who probably don’t need another excuse to sit around.

Well, since the sale involving much of my video game collection has been going so well, I decided it was time to start upgrading my old desktop PC — a Dell Dimension 3000 I got for free from those “referral” deals a few years back — and give it some new life. (It’s not really a bad machine, actually.)

Here’s the rundown of what all I’ve picked up for less than $200 total:

• 320GB Seagate Barracuda Hard Drive (replacing my 80GB internal)
• 250GB Seagate Barracuda Hard Drive (replacing the Xbox’s 120GB)
• VisionTek Xtasy Theater 550 Pro (replacing my old TV Wonder VE)
• External USB Hard Drive Enclosure (to externalize the 120GB)
• 8-Port USB 2.0 (5 ports) and Firewire (3 Ports) PCI Card (replacing the separate USB 2.0 and Firewire cards currently installed)

Not a bad set of grabs, really. Looks like I’ll be a busy guy this week getting it all set up (in between the myriad of other things I’ve got on my plate).

Many hours of work and endless tweaking later, my latest project, this time involving a Toshiba Libretto 100CT, is a success. The GPS receiver came in yesterday afternoon, after which I promptly went to do a couple of hours of wrangling with nonexistant installation instructions, then eventually testing with Streets & Trips 2006.


Starting Specs for the Toshiba Libretto 100CT:

• Pentium 166Mhz
• 32MB RAM
• 2.1GB HDD
• Windows 98
• Internet Explorer 4.0
• Office 97
• Lotus Notes
• McAfee Antivirus 4.0
• Xircom 56k Modem/100mbps Ethernet Card

Post-Project Specs:

• Pentium 266Mhz (after soldering modification to the motherboard)
• 64MB RAM (after reseating a loose 32MB module)
• 2.1GB HDD
• Windows 98SE (pared WAY down, and secured)
• Office 97
• Firefox 1.5
• Thunderbird 1.5
• Microsoft Streets & Trips 2006
• Winamp 2.9 (streams smoothly from Shoutcast, and from MP3s over the LAN)
• Filezilla FTP Client
• AVG Anti-Virus Personal Edition
• AMN Refrigerator v2.x (for cooling the CPU, unit has no built-in fan)
• Netgear WG511v2 802.11g Wireless Card
• Xircom 56k Modem/100mbps Ethernet Card
• PQI CompactFlash to PCMCIA Adapter (GPS receiver/digital photos)
• Generic UG-200-CF CompactFlash GPS Receiver
• …and about 20 classic games from the 90s (Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, etc.)

All-in-all, it was a pretty challenging project. Endless swapfile tweaks and whatnot kept me on my toes for days. The biggest impediment to getting anything done was easily the paltry size of the hard drive — Streets & Trips takes up 1.1GB on its own, leaving the rest to sit in the remaining 900MB of space. At last check, I still have anywhere between 150-175MB free (varying due to the swapfile).

In the end, though, I’ve taken what was a pretty ancient, unused computer and given it a new life as a lean, ultra-portable machine not only capable of accessing the Internet from most anywhere, but of reading in photos from the CF card and of course uber-cool GPS functionality for the road — normally retailing in the hundreds for a standalone unit. Since it has Office 97, a modern web browser, and a decent mail client, I can pretty much do anything I’ll ever need to on it when a larger laptop would be too unwieldy. It was well worth the effort put into it; it handles everything much faster and more efficiently than I ever expected from a computer literally the size of a VHS cassette.

Image Archive: http://www.op9.net/images/libretto/